[FN#4] As a rule, amongst Moslems the rider salutes the man on foot and the latter those who sit.
The saying in the text suggests the Christian byword anent Mohammed and the Mountain, which
is, I need hardly say, utterly unknown to Mahommedans.

[FN#5] The story-teller does not remember that "the city-folk trust to the locking of the gates"
(dccclxxxix.); and forgets to tell us that the Princess took the keys from the Wazir whom she had
hocussed. In a carefully corrected Arabic Edition of The Nights, a book much wanted, the texts
which are now in a mutilated state would be supplied with these details.

[FN#6] Which probably would not be the last administered to him by the Amazonian young
person, who after her mate feared to approach the dead blackamoor must have known him to be
cowardly as Cairenes generally are. Moreover, he had no shame in his poltroonery like the
recreant Fellah-soldiers, in the wretched Sawákin campaign against the noble Súdáni negroids,
who excused their running away by saying, "We are Egyptians" i.e. too good men and Moslems to
lose our lives as becomes you Franks and dog-Christians. Yet under Mohammed Ali the Great,
Fellah-soldiers conquered the "colligated" Arabs (Pilgrimage iii. 48) of Al-Asir (Ophir) at Bissel
and in Wahhabi-land and put the Turks to flight at the battle of Nazib, and the late General
Johnmus assured me that he saved his command, the Ottoman cavalry in Syria, by always
manoeuvring to refuse a pitched battle. But Mohammed Ali knew his men. He never failed to
shoot a runaway, and all his officers, even the lieutenants, were Turks or Albanians. Sa'id Pasha
was the first to appoint Fellah-officers and under their command the Egyptian soldier, one of the
best in the East, at once became the worst. We have at last found the right way to make them
fight, by officering them with Englishmen, but we must not neglect the shooting process whenever
they dare to turn tail.

[FN#7] "Al-walhán" (as it should be printed in previous places, instead of Al-walahán) is certainly
not a P.N. in this place.

[FN#13] i.e. Weevil's dung; hence Suez = Suways the little weevil, or "little Sus" from the
Maroccan town: see The Mines of Midian p. 74 for a note on the name. Near Gibraltar is a
fuimara called Guadalajara i.e. Wady al-Khara, of dung. "Bartús" is evidently formed "on the
weight" of "Bartút;" and his metonym is a caricature, a chaff fit for Fellahe.

[FN#14] Arab. "Al-Din al-a'raj," the perverted or falsified Faith, Christianity having been made
obsolete and abolished by the Mission of Mohammed, even as Christianity claims to have
superseded the Mosaic and Noachian dispensations. Moslems are perfectly logical in their
deductions, but logic and truth do not always go together.

[FN#15] The "Breaker of Wind" (faswah - a fizzle, a silent crepitus) "son of Children's dung."

[FN#16] Arab. "Ammá laka an 'alayk" lit. = either to thee (be the gain) or upon thee (be the loss).
This truly Arabic idiom is varied in many ways.

[FN#17] In addition to what was noted in vol. iii. 100 and viii. 51, I may observe that in the
"Masnavi" the "Baghdad of Nulliquity" is opposed to the Ubiquity of the World. The popular
derivation is Bagh (the idol-god, the slav "Bog") and dád a gift, he gave (Persian). It is also called
Al-Zaurá = a bow, from the bend of the Tigris where it was built.

[FN#19] The Caliph could not "see" her "sweetness of speech"; so we must understand that he
addressed her and found out that she was fluent of tongue. But this idiomatic use of the word
"see" is also found in the languages of Southern Europe: so Camoens (Lus. 1. ii.), "Ouvi * * *
vereis" lit. = "hark, you shall see" which sounds Hibernian.

[FN#20] Here "Farz" (Koranic obligation which it is mortal sin to gainsay) follows whereas it
should precede "Sunnat" (sayings and doings of the Apostle) simply because "Farz" jingles with
"Arz" (earth).

[FN#21] Moslems, like modern Agnostics, hold that Jesus of Nazareth would be greatly
scandalized by the claims to Godship advanced for him by his followers.

[FN#22] Koran ix. 33: See also v. 85. In the passage above quoted Mr. Rodwell makes the
second "He" refer to the deity.

[FN#23] Koran xxvi. 88, 89. For a very indifferent version (and abridgment) of this speech, see
Saturday Review, July 9, 1881.

[FN#25] Arab. "Furát" from the Arab. "Faruta" = being sweet, as applied to water. Al-Furátáni =
the two sweet (rivers), are the Tigris and Euphrates. The Greeks, who in etymology were satisfied
with Greek, derived the latter from (to gladden, laetificare, for which see Pliny and
Strabo, although both are correct in explaining "Tigris") and Selden remarks hereon, "Talibus
nugis nugantur Graeculi." But not only the "Graeculi"; e.g. Parkhurst's good old derivations from
the Heb. "Farah" of fero, fructus, Freya (the Goddess), frayer (to spawn), friand, fry (of fish), etc.,
etc.

[FN#26] The great Caliph was a poet; and he spoke verses as did all his contemporaries: his
lament over his slave-girl Haylanah (Helen) is quoted by Al-Suyuti, p. 305.

[FN#29] usually called the Horns of Hattin (classically Hittin) North of Tiberias where Saladin by
good strategy and the folly of the Franks annihilated the Latin kingdom of Jerusalem. For details
see the guide-books. In this action (June 23, 1187), after three bishops were slain in its defence,
the last fragment of the True Cross (or rather the cross verified by Helena) fell into Moslem
hands. The Christians begged hard for it, but Saladin, a conscientious believer, refused to return
to them even for ransom "the object of their iniquitous superstition." His son, however, being of
another turn, would have sold it to the Franks who then lacked money to purchase. It presently
disappeared and I should not be surprised if it were still lying, an unknown and inutile lignum in
some Cairene mosque.

[FN#30] Akká (Acre) was taken by Saladin on July 29, 1187. The Egyptian states that he was at
Acre in 1184 or three years before the affair of Hattin (Night dcccxcv.).

[FN#31] Famous Sufis and ascetics of the second and third centuries A.H. For Bishr Barefoot,
see vol. ii. p. 127. Al-Sakati means "the old-clothes man;" and the names of the others are all
recorded in D'Herbelot.

[FN#33] Arab. "Al-Sáhil" i.e. the seaboard of Syria; properly Phoenicia or the coast-lands of
Southern Palestine. So the maritime lowlands of continental Zanzibar are called in the plur.
Sawáhil = "the shores" and the people Sawáhílí = Shore-men.

[FN#34] Arab. "Al-Khizánah" both in Mac. Edit. and Breslau x. 426. Mr. Payne has translated
"tents" and says, "Saladin seems to have been encamped without Damascus and the slave-merchant had apparently come out and pitched his tent near the camp for the purposes of his
trade." But I can find no notice of tents till a few lines below.

[FN#37] A descendant of Háshim, the Apostle's great-grandfather from whom the Abbasides
were directly descended. The Ommiades were less directly akin to Mohammed, being the
descendants of Hashim's brother, Abd al-Shams. The Hashimis were famed for liberality; and the
quality seems to have been inherited. The first Háshim got his name from crumbling bread into the
Saríd or brewis of the Meccan pilgrims during "The Ignorance." He was buried at Ghazzah
(Gaza) but his tomb was soon forgotten.

[FN#41] A town of Irák Arabi (Mesopotamia) between Baghdad and Bassorah built upon the
Tigris and founded by Al-Hajjaj: it is so called because the "Middle" or half-way town between
Basrah and Kufah. To this place were applied the famous lines:--

In good sooth a right noble race are they; Whose men "yea" can't say nor their women "nay."

[FN#48] "Most of the great Arab musicians had their own peculiar fashion of tuning the lute, for
the purpose of extending its register or facilitating the accompaniment of songs composed in
uncommon keys and rhythms or possibly of increasing its sonority, and it appears to have been a
common test of the skill of a great musician, such as Ishac el-Mausili or his father Ibrahim, to
require him to accompany a difficult song on a lute purposely untuned. As a (partial) modern
instance of the practice referred to in the text, may be cited Paganini's custom of lowering or
raising the G string of the violin in playing certain of his own compositions. According to the
Kitab el-Aghani, Ishac el-Mausili is said to have familiarized himself, by incessant practice, with
the exact sounds produced by each division of the strings of the four course lute of his day, under
every imaginable circumstance of tuning." It is regrettable that Mr. Payne does not give us more
of such notes.

[FN#50] In the Mac. Edit. "Aylah" for Ubullah: the latter is one of the innumerable canals,
leading from Bassorah to Ubullah-town a distance of twelve miles. Its banks are the favourite
pleasure-resort of the townsfolk, being built over with villas and pavilions (now no more) and the
orchards seem to form one great garden, all confined by one wall. See Jaubert's translation of Al-Idrisi, vol. i. pp. 368-69. The Aylah, a tributary of the Tigris, waters (I have noted) the Gardens of
Bassorah.

[FN#51] Music having been forbidden by Mohammed who believed with the vulgar that the Devil
has something to do with it. Even Paganini could not escape suspicion in the nineteenth century.

[FN#52] The "Mahr," or Arab dowry consists of two parts, one paid down on consummation and
the other agreed to be paid to the wife, contingently upon her being divorced by her husband. If
she divorce him this portion, which is generally less than the half, cannot be claimed by her; and I
have related the Persian abomination which compels the woman to sacrifice her rights. See vol. iii.
p. 304.

[FN#53] i.e. the cost of her maintenance during the four months of single blessedness which must
or ought to elapse before she can legally marry again.

[FN#54] Lane translates most incompletely, "To Him, then, be praise, first and last"

[FN#60] As the sequel shows the better title would be, '`The Cat and the Mouse" as in the
headings of the Mac. Edit. and "What befel the Cat with the Mouse," as a punishment for tyranny.
But all three Edits. read as in the text and I have not cared to change it. In our European
adaptations the mouse becomes a rat.

[FN#61] So that I may not come to grief by thus daring to foretell evil things.

[FN#62] Arab. "Af'á'" pl. Afá'í = , both being derived from 0. Egypt. Hfi, a worm, snake. Af'á
is applied to many species of the larger ophidia, all supposed to be venomous, and synonymous
with "Sall" (a malignant viper) in Al Mutalammis. See Preston's Al Hariri, p. 101.

[FN#63] This apparently needless cruelty of all the feline race is a strong weapon in the hand of
the Eastern "Dahrí" who holds that the world is God and is governed by its own laws, in
opposition to the religionists believing in a Personal Deity whom, moreover, they style the
Merciful, the Compassionate, etc. Some Christians have opined that cruelty came into the world
with "original Sin," but how do they account for the hideous waste of life and the fearful
destructiveness of the fishes which certainly never learned anything from man? The mystery of the
cruelty of things can be explained only by a Law without a Law-giver.

[FN#64] The three things not to be praised before death in Southern Europe are a horse, a priest
and a woman; and it has become a popular saying that only fools prophesy before the event.

[FN#66] This is a mere rechauffé of the Barber's tale of his Fifth Brother (vol. i. 335). In addition
to the authorities there cited I may mention the school reading-lesson in Addison's Spectator
derived from Galland's version of "Alnaschar and his basket of Glass," the Persian version of the
Hitopadesa or "Anwár-i-Suhayli (Lights of Canopes) by Husayn Vá'iz; the Foolish Sachali of
"Indian Fairy Tales" (Miss Stokes); the allusion in Rabelais to the fate of the "Shoemaker and his
pitcher of milk" and the "Dialogues of creatures moralised" (1516), whence probably La Fontaine
drew his fable, "La Laitière et le Pot au lait."

[FN#68] The well-known Egyptian term for a peasant, a husbandman, extending from the Nile to
beyond Mount Atlas

[FN#69] This is again, I note, the slang sense of "'Azím," which in classical Arabic means

[FN#70] Arab "Adab" ; see vol. i. 132. It also implies mental discipline, the culture which leads to
excellence, good manners and good morals; and it is sometimes synonymous with literary skill and
scholarship. "Ilm al-Adab," says Haji Khalfah (Lane's Lex.), " is the science whereby man guards
against error in the language of the Arabs spoken or written."

[FN#75] The humour of this euphuistic Wazirial speech, purposely made somewhat pompous, is
the contrast between the unhappy Minister's praises and the result of his prognostication. I cannot
refrain from complimenting Mr. Payne upon the admirable way in which he has attacked and
mastered all the difficulties of its abstruser passages.

[FN#76] 'Arab. "Halummú" plur. of "Halumma"=draw near! The latter form is used by some
tribes for all three numbers; others affect a dual and a plural (as in the text). Preston ( Al Hariri, p.
210) derives it from Heb., but the geographers of Kufah and Basrah (who were not etymologists)
are divided about its origin. He translates (p. 221) "Halumma Jarran = being the rest of the tale in
continuation with this, i.e. in accordance with it like our "and so forth." And in p. 271, he makes
Halumma=Hayya i.e. hither' (to prayer, etc.).

[FN#77] This is precisely the semi-fatalistic and wholly superstitious address which would find
favour with Moslems of the present day they still prefer "calling upon Hercules" to putting their
shoulders to the wheel. Mr. Redhouse had done good work in his day but of late he has devoted
himself, especially in the "Mesnevi," to a rapprochement between Al-Islam and Christianity which
both would reject (see supra, vol. vii. p. 135). The Calvinistic predestination as shown in the term
"vessel of wrath," is but a feeble reflection of Moslem fatalism. On this subject I shall have more
to say in a future volume.

[FN#78] The inhabitants of temperate climates have no idea what ants can do in the tropics. The
Kafirs of South Africa used to stake down their prisoners (among them a poor friend of mine)
upon an ant-hill and they were eaten atom after atom in a few hours. The death must be the
slowest form of torture; but probably the nervous system soon becomes insensible. The same has
happened to more than one hapless invalid, helplessly bedridden, in Western Africa. I have
described an invasion of ants in my "Zanzibar," vol. ii. 169; and have suffered from such attacks in
many places between that and Dahomey.

[FN#79] Arab. "Sa'lab." See vol. iii 132, where it is a fox. I render it jackal because that cousin of
the fox figures as a carnon-eater in Hindu folk-lore, the Hitopadesa, Panchopakhyan, etc. This
tale, I need hardly say, is a mere translation; as is shown by the Kathá s.s. "Both jackal and fox are
nicknamed Joseph the Scribe (Tálib Yúsuf) in the same principle that lawyers are called
landsharks by sailors." (P. 65, Moorish Lotus Leaves, etc., by George D. Cowan and R. L. N.
Johnston, London, Tinsleys, 1883.)

[FN#80] Arab. "Sahm mush'ab" not "barbed" (at the wings) but with double front, much used for
birding and at one time familiar in the West as in the East. And yet "barbed" would make the fable
read much better.

[FN#82] Arab. "Maghrib" (or in full Maghrib al Aksá) lit. =the Land of the setting sun for whose
relation to "Mauritania" see vol. vii. 220. It is almost synonymous with "Al-Gharb"=the West
whence Portugal borrowed the two Algarves, one being in Southern Europe and the other over
the straits about Tangier Ceuta; fronting Spanish Trafalgar, i.e. Taraf al Gharb, the edge of the
West. I have noted (Pilgrimage i. 9) the late Captain Peel's mis-translation "Cape of Laurels"
(Al-Ghár).

[FN#83] Even the poorest of Moslem wanderers tries to bear with him a new suit of clothes for
keeping the two festivals and Friday service in the Mosque. See Pilgrimage i. 235; iii. 257, etc.

[FN#84] Arab. "Sáyih" lit. a wanderer, subaudi for religious and ascetic objects; and not to be
confounded with the "pilgrim" proper.

[FN#86] This was the custom of the whole Moslem world and still is where uncorrupted by
Christian uncharity and contempt for all "men of God" save its own. But the change in such places
as Egypt is complete and irrevocable. Even in 1852 my Dervish's frock brought me nothing but
contempt in Alexandria and Cairo.

[FN#87] Arab. "Ya jáhil," lit. =O ignorant. The popular word is Ahmak which, however, in the
West means a maniac, a madman, a Santon; "Bohlí" being= a fool.

[FN#88] The prison according to the practice of the East being in the palace: so the Moorish
'Kasbah," which lodges the Governor and his guard, always contains the jail.

[FN#89] Arab. "Tuwuffiya," lit.=was received (into the grace of God), an euphemistic and more
polite term than "máta"=he died. The latter term is avoided by the Founder of Chnstianity; and
our Spiritualists now say "passed away to a higher life," a phrase embodying a theory which, to
say the least, is "not proven "

[FN#91] Arab. "Háwi" from "Hayyah," a serpent. See vol. iii. 145. Most of the Egyptian snake
charmers are Gypsies, but they do not like to be told of their origin. At Baroda in Guzerat I took
lessons in snake-catching, but found the sport too dangerous; when the animal flees, the tail is
caught by the left hand and the right is slipped up to the neck, a delicate process, as a few inches
too far or not far enough would be followed by certain death in catching a Cobra. At last certain
of my messmates killed one of the captives and the snake-charmer would have no more to do with
me.

[FN#92] Arab. "Sallah," also Pers., a basket of wickerwork. This article is everywhere used for
lodging snakes from Egypt to Morocco.

[FN#93] Arab. "Mubarak." It is a favourite name for a slave in Morocco, the slave-girl being
called Mubárakah; and the proverb being, "Blessed is the household which hath neither M'bárk
nor M'bárkah" (as they contract the words).

[FN#94] The Bresl. Edit. (viii. 48) instead of the Gate (Báb) gives a Bádhanj=a Ventilator; for
which latter rendering see vol. i. 257. The spider's web is Koranic (lxxxi. 40) "Verily frailest of all
houses is the house of the spider."

[FN#96] And yet, as the next page shows the youth's education was complete in his twelfth year.
But as all three texts agree, I do not venture upon changing the number to six or seven, the age at
which royal education outside the Harem usually begins.

[FN#97] i.e. One for each day in the Moslem year. For these object-lessons, somewhat in Kinder-garten style, see the Book of Sindibad or The Malice of Women (vol. vi. 126).

[FN#101] i.e for the purpose of requital. All the above is orthodox Moslem doctrine, which
utterly ignores the dictum "ex nihilo nihil fit;" and which would look upon Creation by Law
(Darwinism) as opposed to Creation by miracle (e.g. the Mosaic cosmogony) as rank blasphemy.
On the other hand the Eternity of Matter and its transcendental essence are tenets held by a host
of Gnostics, philosophers and Eastern Agnostics.

[FN#102] This is a Moslem lieu commun; usually man is likened to one suspended in a bottomless
well by a thin rope at which a rodent is continually gnawing and who amuses himself in licking a
few drops of honey left by bees on the revetement.

[FN#103] A curious pendent to the Scriptural parable of the Uniust Steward.

[FN#104] Arab. "Rúh" Heb. Ruach: lit. breath (spiritus) which in the animal kingdom is the surest
sign of life. See vol. v. 29. Nothing can be more rigidly materialistic than the called Mosaic law.

[FN#105] Arab. "Al-Amr" which may also mean the business, the matter, the affair.

[FN#107] Arab "Lijám shadíd:" the ring-bit of the Arabs is perhaps the severest form known: it is
required by the Eastern practice of pulling up the horse when going at full speed and it is too well
known to require description. As a rule the Arab rides with a "lady's hand" and the barbarous
habit of "hanging on by the curb" is unknown to him. I never pass by Rotten Row or see a
regiment of English Cavalry without wishing to leave riders nothing but their snaffles.

[FN#108] We find this orderly distribution of time (which no one adopts) in many tongues and
many forms. In the Life of Sir W. Jones (vol. i. p. 193, Poetical Works etc.) the following occurs,
"written in India on a small piece of paper";--

Sir Edward Coke "Six hours to sleep, in law's grave study six! Four spend in prayer,--the rest on Heaven fix!" Rather: "Seven hours to law, to soothing slumber seven; Ten to the world allot, and all to Heaven!"

But this is not practical. I must prefer the Chartist distribution:

Six hours sleep and six hours play: Six hours work and six shillings a day.

Mr Froude (Oceana) speaks of New Zealanders having attained that ideal of operative felicity:--

Eight to work, eight to play; Eight to sleep and eight shillings a day.

[FN#110] As a rule when the felidæ wag their tails, it is a sign of coming anger, the reverse with
the canidæ.

[FN#111] In India it is popularly said that the Rajah can do anything with the Ryots provided he
respects their women and their religion--not their property.

[FN#112] Arab. "Sunan" for which see vol. v. 36, 167. Here it is=Rasm or usage, equivalent to
our precedents, and held valid, especially when dating from olden time, in all matters which are
not expressly provided for by Koranic command. For instance a Hindí Moslem (who doubtless
borrowed the customs from Hindús) will refuse to eat with the Kafir, and when the latter objects
that there is no such prohibition in the Koran will reply, "No but it is our Rasm." As a rule the
Anglo-Indian is very ignorant on this essential point.

[FN#118] this is the usual illogical contention of all religions. It is not the question whether an
Almighty Being can do a given thing: the question is whether He has or has not done it.

[FN#119] Upon the old simile of the potter I shall have something to say in a coming volume.

[FN#120] A fine specimen of a peculiarity in the undeveloped mind of man, the universal
confusion between things objective as a dead body and states of things as death. We begin by
giving a name, for facility of intercourse, to phases, phenomena and conditions of matter; and,
having created the word we proceed to supply it with a fanciful entity, e.g. "The Mind (a useful
term to express the aggregate action of the brain, nervous system etc.) of man is immortal." The
next step is personification as Time with his forelock, Death with his skull and Night (the absence
of light) with her starry mantle. For poetry this abuse of language is a sine qua non, but it is
deadly foe to all true philosophy.

[FN#121] Christians would naturally understand this "One Word" to be the of the
Platonists, adopted by St. John (comparatively a late writer) and by the Alexandrian school,
Jewish (as Philo Judaeus) and Christian. But here the tale-teller alludes to the Divine Word "Kun"
(be!) whereby the worlds came into existence.

[FN#123] Thus in two texts. Mr. Payne has, "Verily God the Most High created man after His
own image, and likened him to Himself, all of Him truth, without falsehood; then He gave him
dominion over himself and ordered him and forbade him, and it was man who transgressed His
commandment and erred in his obedience and brought falsehood upon himself of his own will."
Here he borrows from the Bresl. Edit. viii. 84 (five first lines). But the doctrine is rather Jewish
and Christian than Moslem: Al-Mas'údi (ii. 389) introduces a Copt in the presence of Ibn Tutún
saying, "Prince, these people (designing a Jew) pretend that Allah Almighty created Adam (i.e.
mankind) after His own image" ('Alá Súrati-h).

[FN#125] Arab. "Al-Kasab," which phrenologists would translate "acquisitiveness," The author is
here attempting to reconcile man's moral responsibility, that is Freewill, with Fate by which all
human actions are directed and controlled. I cannot see that he fails to "apprehend the knotty
point of doctrine involved"; but I find his inability to make two contraries agree as pronounced as
that of all others, Moslems and Christians, that preceded him in the same path.

[FN#126] The order should be, "men, angels and Jinn," for which see vol. i. p. 10. But "angels"
here takes precedence because Iblis was one of them.

[FN#127] Arab. "Wartah"=precipice, quagmire, quicksand and hence sundry secondary and
metaphorical significations, under which, as in the "Semitic" (Arabic) tongues generally, the
prosaical and material sense of the word is clearly evident. I noted this in Pilgrimage iii. 66 and
was soundly abused for so saying by a host of Sciolists.

[FN#128] i.e. Allowing the Devil to go about the world and seduce mankind until Doomsday
when "auld Sootie's" occupation will be gone. Surely "Providence" might have managed better.

[FN#130] Here "Istitá'ah" would mean capability of action, i.e. freewill, which is a mere word
like "free-trade."

[FN#131] Arab. "Bi al-taubah" which may also mean "for (on account of his) penitence." The
reader will note how the learned Shimas "dodges" the real question. He is asked why the
"Omnipotent, Omniscient did not prevent (i.e. why He created) sin?" He answers that He kindly
permitted (i.e. created and sanctioned) it that man might repent. Proh pudor! If any one thus
reasoned of mundane matters he would be looked upon as the merest fool.

[FN#133] Mr. Payne translates "it" i.e. the Truth; but the formula following the word shows that
Allah is meant.

[FN#134] Moslems, who do their best to countermine the ascetic idea inherent in Christianity, are
not ashamed of the sensual appetite; but rather the reverse. I have heard in Persia of a Religious,
highly esteemed for learning and saintly life who, when lodged by a disciple at Shiraz, came out of
his sleeping room and aroused his host with the words "Shahwat dáram!" equivalent to our "I
want a woman." He was at once married to one of the slave-girls and able to gratify the demands
of the flesh.

[FN#135] Koran iv. 81, "Whatever good betideth thee is from God, and whatever betideth thee
Of evil is from thyself": rank Manichæism, as pronounced as any in Christendom.

[FN#137] It is the innate craving in the "Aryan" (Iranian, not the Turanian) mind, this longing to
know what follows Death, or if nothing follows it, which accounts for the marvellous diffusion of
the so-called Spiritualism which is only Swedenborgianism systematised and earned out into
action, amongst nervous and impressionable races like the Anglo-American. In England it is the
reverse; the obtuse sensitiveness of a people bred on beef and beer has made the "Religion of the
Nineteenth Century" a manner of harmless magic, whose miracles are table-turning and ghost
seeing whilst the prodigious rascality of its prophets (the so-called Mediums) has brought it into
universal disrepute. It has been said that Catholicism must be true to co-exist with the priest and it
is the same with Spiritualism proper, by which I understand the belief in a life beyond the grave, a
mere continuation of this life; it flourishes (despite the Medium) chiefly because it has laid before
man the only possible and intelligible idea of a future state.

[FN#138] See vol. vi. p. 7. The only lie which degrades a man in his own estimation and in that of
others, is that told for fear of telling the truth. Au reste, human society and civilised intercourse
are built upon a system of conventional lying. and many droll stories illustrate the consequences of
disregarding the dictum, la verité n'est pas tonjours bonne à dire.

[FN#139] Arab. "Walí'ahd" which may mean heir-presumptive (whose heirship is contingent) or
heir-apparent.

[FN#141] All the texts give a decalogue; but Mr. Payne has reduced it to a heptalogue.

[FN#142] The Arabs who had a variety of anæsthetics never seem to have studied the subject of
"euthanasia." They preferred seeing a man expire in horrible agonies to relieving him by means of
soporifics and other drugs: so I have heard Christians exult in saying that the sufferer "kept his
senses to the last." Of course superstition is at the bottom of this barbarity; the same which a
generation ago made the silly accoucheur refuse to give ether because of the divine (?) saying "In
sorrow shalt thou bring forth children." (Gen iii. 16.) In the Bosnia-Herzegovina campaign many
of the Austrian officers carried with them doses of poison to be used in case of being taken
prisoners by the ferocious savages against whom they were fighting. As many anecdotes about
"Easing off the poor dear" testify, the Euthanasia-system is by no means unknown to the lower
classes in England. I shall have more to say on this subject.

[FN#143] See vol. iii. p. 253 for the consequences of royal seclusion of which Europe in the
present day can contribute examples. The lesson which it teaches simply is that the world can get
on very well without royalties.

[FN#144] The grim Arab humour in the text is the sudden change for the worse of the good
young man. Easterns do not believe in the Western saw, "Nemo repente fuit turpissimus." The
spirited conduct of the subjects finds many parallels in European history, especially in Portugal:
see my Life of Camoens p. 234.

[FN#145] Arab. "Muhárabah" lit.=doing battle; but is sometimes used in the sense of gain-saying
or disobeying.

[FN#147] Arab. "Khayr o (we) Áfiyah," a popular phrase much used in salutations, &c.

[FN#148] Another instance, and true to life, of the democracy of despotism in which the express
and combined will of the people is the only absolute law. Hence Russian autocracy is forced into
repeated wars for the possession of Constantinople which, in the present condition of the Empire,
would be an unmitigated evil to her and would be only too glad to see a Principality of Byzantium
placed under the united protection of the European Powers. I have treated of this in my paper on
the "Partition of Turkey," which first appeared, headed the "Future of Turkey," in the Daily
Telegraph, of March 7, 1880, and subsequently by its own name in the Manchester Examiner,
January 3, 1881. The main reason why the project is not carried out appears to be that the
"politicals" would thereby find their occupation gone and they naturally object to losing so fine a
field of action. So Turkey still plays the rôle of the pretty young lady being courted by a rabble of
valets.

[FN#149] Good Moslems are bound to abate such scandals; and in a case of the kind even
neighbours are expected to complain before the Chief of Police. This practice forms "Viligance
Committees" all over the Mahommedan East: and we may take a leaf out of their books if
dynamite-outrages continue.

[FN#150] But a Hadis, attributed to Mohammed, says, "The Prince of a people is their servant."
See Matth. xx. 26-27.

[FN#151] Easterns are well aware of the value of this drug which has become the base of so many
of our modern medicines.

[FN#152] The strangest poison is mentioned by Sonnini who, as a rule, is a trustworthy writer.
Noticing the malignity of Egyptian women he declares (p. 628, English trans.) that they prepare a
draught containing a quant. suff. of menstruous discharge at certain phases of the moon, which
produces symptoms of scurvy; the gums decay, the teeth, beard and hair fall off, the body dries,
the limbs lose strength and death follows within a year. He also asserts that no counterpoison is
known and if this be true he confers a boon upon the Locustæ and Brinvilliers of modern Europe.
In Morocco "Ta'am" is the vulgar name for a mixture of dead men's bones, eyes, hair and similar
ingredients made by old wives and supposed to cause a wasting disease for which the
pharmacopoeia has no cure. Dogs are killed by needles cunningly inserted into meat-balls; and this
process is known through out the Moslem world.

[FN#157] Arab. "Muunah" which in Morocco applies to the provisions furnished gratis by the
unfortunate village-people to travellers who have a passport from the Sultan. its root is Maun
=supplying necessaries. "The name is supposed to have its origin in that of Manna the miraculous
provision bestowed by the bounty of Heaven on the Israelites while wandering in the deserts of
Arabia." Such is the marvellous information we find in p. 40, "Morocco and the Moors" by John
Drummond Hay (Murray, 1861)

[FN#158] i.e. He resolved to do them justice and win a reward from Heaven.

[FN#159] Arab. ''Luss" = thief, robber, rogue, rascal, the Persian "Luti" of popular usage. This is
one of the many ''Simpleton stories" in which Eastern folk-lore abounds. I hear that Mr. Clouston
is preparing a collection, and look forward to it with interest.

[FN#161] A fanciful origin of "Díván" (here an audience-chamber) which may mean demons
(plural of Dív) is attributed to a King of Persia. He gave a series of difficult documents and
accounts to his scribes and surprised at the quickness and cleverness with which they were
ordered exclaimed, "These men be Divs!" Hence a host of secondary meanings as a book of Odes
with distichs rhymed in alphabetical order and so forth.

[FN#162] In both cases the word "Jabábirah" is used, the plur. of Jabbár, the potent, especially
applied to the Kings of the Canaanites and giants like the mythical Og of Bashan. So the Heb.
Jabbúrah is a title of the Queens of Judah.

[FN#163] Arab. "Kitáb al-Kazá"= the Book of Judgments, such as the Kazi would use when
deciding cases in dispute, by legal precedents and the Rasm or custom of the country.

[FN#165] This massacre of refractory chiefs is one of the grand moyens of Eastern state-craft,
and it is almost always successful because circumstances require it; popular opinion approves of it
and it is planned and carried out with discretion and secrecy. The two familiar instances in our
century are the massacre of the Mamelukes by Mohammed Ali Pasha the Great and of the
turbulent chiefs of the Omani Arabs by our ancient ally Sayyid Sa'íd, miscalled the "Imám of
Maskat."

[FN#166] The metaphor (Sabaka) is from horse-racing, the Arabs being, I have said, a horsey
people.

[FN#169] Arab. "Al Hind-al-Aksá." The Sanskrit Sindhu (lands on the Indus River) became in
Zend "Hendu" and hence in Arabic Sind and Hind, which latter I wish we had preserved instead of
the classical "India" or the poetical "Ind."

[FN#170] i.e. by geomancy: see vol. iii. 269 for a note on Al-Raml. The passage is not in the
Mac. Edit.

[FN#171] This address gave the boy Wazirial rank. In many parts of Europe, England included, if
the Sovereign address a subject with a title not belonging to him, it is a disputed point if the latter
can or cannot claim it.

[FN#172] Koran, chapter of Joseph xii. 28, spoken by Potiphar after Joseph's innocence had been
proved by a witness in Potiphar's house or according to the Talmud (Sepher Hádjascher) by an
infant in the cradle. The texts should have printed this as a quotation (with vowel points).

[FN#173] Arab. "Al-'Azíz," alluding to Joseph the Patriarch entitled in Egypt "Azíz al-Misr"=
Magnifico of Misraim (Koran xii. 54). It is generally believed that Ismail Pasha, whose unwise
deposition has caused the English Government such a host of troubles and load of obloquy,
aspired to be named "'Azíz" by the Porte; but was compelled to be satisfied with Khadív (vulg.
written Khedive, and pronounced even "Kédivé"), a Persian title, which simply means prince or
Rajah, as Khadív-i-Hind.

[FN#175] For the "Dawát" or wooden inkcase containing reeds see vol. v. 239 and viii. 178. I
may remark that its origin is the Egyptian "Pes," of which there is a specimen in the British
Museum inscribed, "Amásis the good god and Lord of the two Lands."

[FN#176] i.e. I am governed by the fear of Allah in my dealings to thee and thy subjects.

[FN#177] Arabic has no single word for million although the Maroccans have adopted "Milyún"
from the Spaniards (see p. 100 of the Rudimentos del Árabe vulgar que se habla en el imperio de
Marruccos por El P. Fr. Josè de Lerchundi, Madrid 1872): This lack of the higher numerals, the
reverse of the Hindu languages, makes Arabic "arithmology" very primitive and almost as
cumbrous as the Chinese.

[FN#180] Arab. "Khitáb" = the exordium of a letter preceding its business-matter and in which
the writer displays all his art. It ends with "Ammá ba'd," lit.=but after, equivalent to our "To
proceed." This "Khitáb" is mostly skipped over by modern statesmen who will say, "Now after the
nonsense let us come to the sense"; but their secretaries carefully weigh every word of it, and
strongly resent all shortcomings.

[FN#181] Strongly suggesting that the King had forgotten how to read and write. So not a few of
the Amirs of Sind were analphabetic and seemed rather proud of it: "a Baloch cannot write, but he
always carries a signet-ring." I heard of an old English lady of the past generation in Northern
Africa who openly declared "A Warrington shall never learn to read or write."

[FN#182] Arab. "Ámin," of which the Heb. form is Amen from the root Amn=stability,
constancy. In both tongues it is a particle of affirmation or consent=it is true! So be it! The
Hebrew has also "Amanah"=verily, truly.

[FN#183] To us this seems a case of "hard lines" for the unhappy women; but Easterns then
believed and still believe in the divinity which cloth hedge in a King, in his reigning by the "grace
of God," and in his being the Viceregent of Allah upon earth; briefly in the old faith of loyalty
which great and successful republics are fast making obsolete in the West and nowhere faster than
in England.

[FN#184]Abú Sír is a manifest corruption of the old Egyptian Pousiri, the Busiris of our classics,
and it gives a name to sundry villages in modern Egypt where it is usually pronounced "Búsír".
Abú Kír lit. = the Father of Pitch, is also corrupted to Abou Kir (Bay); and the townlet now marks
the site of jolly old Canopus, the Chosen Land of Egyptian debauchery.

[FN#185] It is interesting to note the superior gusto with which the Eastern, as well as the
Western tale-teller describes his scoundrels and villains whilst his good men and women are
mostly colourless and unpicturesque. So Satan is the true hero of Paradise-Lost and by his side
God and man are very ordinary; and Mephistopheles is much better society than Faust and
Margaret.

[FN#186] Arab. "Dukhán," lit. = smoke, here tobacco for the Chibouk, "Timbák" or "Tumbák"
being the stronger (Persian and other) variety which must be washed before smoking in the
Shíshah or water pipe. Tobacco is mentioned here only and is evidently inserted by some scribe:
the "weed" was not introduced into the East before the end of the sixteenth century (about a
hundred years after coffee), when it radically changed the manners of society.

[FN#187] Which meant that the serjeant, after the manner of such officials, would make him pay
dearly before giving up the key. Hence a very severe punishment in the East is to "call in a
policeman" who carefully fleeces all those who do not bribe him to leave them in freedom.

[FN#188] Arab. "Má Dáhiyatak?" lit. "What is thy misfortune?" The phrase is slighting if not
insulting.

[FN#189] Amongst Moslems the plea of robbing to keep life and body together would be
accepted by a good man like Abu Sir, who still consorted with a self-confessed thief.

[FN#190] To make their agreement religiously binding. See vol. iv. 36.

[FN#192] The patient is usually lathered in a gib gasin of tinned brass, "Mambrino's helmet" with
a break in the rim to fit the throat; but the poorer classes carry only a small cup with water instead
of soap and water ignoring the Italian proverb, "Barba ben saponata mezza fatta" = well lathered
is half shaved. A napkin fringed at either end is usually thrown over the Figaro's shoulder and
used to wipe the razor.

[FN#194] Arab. "Batárikh" the roe (sperm or spawn) of the salted Fasíkh (fish) and the Búrí
(mugil cephalus) a salt-water fish caught in the Nile and considered fair eating. Some write
Butárghá from the old Egyptian town Burát, now a ruin between Tinnis and Damietta (Sonnini).

[FN#196] Arab. "Anyáb," plur. of Náb applied to the grinder teeth but mostly to the canines or
eye teeth, tusks of animals, etc. (See vol. vii. p. 339) opp. To Saniyah, one of the four central
incisors, a camel in the sixth year and horse, cow, sheep and goat in fourth year.

[FN#197] The coffee (see also vol. viii. 274) like the tobacco is probably due to the scribe; but the
tale appears to be comparatively modern. In The Nights men eat, drink and wash their hands but
do not smoke and sip coffee like the moderns. See my Terminal Essay §2.

[FN#198] Arab. "Mi'lakah" (Bresl. Edit. x, 456). The fork is modern even in the East and the
Moors borrow their term for it from fourchette. But the spoon, which may have begun with a
cockle-shell, dates from the remotest antiquity.

[FN#199] Arab. "Sufrah" properly the cloth or leather upon which food is placed. See vol. i.
178.

[FN#203] Arab. "Nílah" lit. = indigo, but here applied to all the materials for dyeing. The word is
Sanskrit, and the growth probably came from India, although during the Crusaders' occupation of
Jerusalem it was cultivated in the valley of the lower Jordan. I need hardly say that it has nothing
to do with the word "Nile" whose origin is still sub judice. And yet I lately met a sciolist who
pompously announced to me this philological absurdity as a discovery of his own.

[FN#204] Still a popular form of "bilking" in the Wakálahs or Caravanserais of Cairo: but as a
rule the Bawwáb (porter or doorkeeper) keeps a sharp eye on those he suspects. The evil is
increased when women are admitted into these places; so periodical orders for their exclusion are
given to the police.

[FN#205] Natives of Egypt always hold this diaphoresis a sign that the disease has abated and
they regard it rightly in the case of bilious remittents to which they are subject, especially after the
hardships and sufferings of a sea-voyage with its alternations of fasting and over-eating.

[FN#209] Men are often seen doing this in the Hammam. The idea is that the skin when free from
sebaceous exudation sounds louder under the clapping. Easterns judge much by the state of the
perspiration, especially in horse-training, which consists of hand-gallops for many successive
miles. The sweat must not taste over salt and when held between thumb and forefinger and the
two are drawn apart must not adhere in filaments.

[FN#210] Lit. "Aloes for making Nadd;" see vol. i. 310. "Eagle-wood" (the Malay Aigla and
Agallochum the Sansk. Agura) gave rise to many corruptions as lignum aloes, the Portuguese Páo
d' Aguila etc. "Calamba" or "Calambak" was the finest kind. See Colonel Yule in the "Voyage of
Linschoten" (vol. i. 120 and 150). Edited for the Hakluyt Soc. (1885) by my learned and most
amiable friend, the late Arthur Cooke Burnell.

[FN#211] The Hammam is one of those unpleasant things which are left "Alà júdi-k" = to thy
generosity; and the higher the bather's rank the more he or she is expected to pay. See Pilgrimage
i. 103. In 1853 I paid at Cairo 3 piastres and twenty paras, something more than sixpence, but
now five shillings would be asked.

[FN#212] This is something like the mythical duchess in England who could not believe that the
poor were starving when sponge-cakes were so cheap.

[FN#213] This magnificent "Bakhshish" must bring water into the mouths of all the bath-men in
the coffee-house assembly.

[FN#214] i.e. the treasurer did not, as is the custom of such gentry, demand and receive a large
"Bakhshish" on the occasion.

[FN#216] In the first room of the Hammam, called the Maslakh or stripping-place, the keeper sits
by a large chest in which he deposits the purses and valuables of his customers and also makes it
the caisse for the pay. Something of the kind is now done in the absurdly called "Turkish Baths"
of London.

[FN#217] This is the rule in Egypt and Syria and a clout hung over the door shows that women
are bathing. I have heard, but only heard, that in times and places when eunuchs went in with the
women youths managed by long practice to retract the testicles so as to pass for castratos. It is
hard to say what perseverance may not effect in this line; witness Orsini and his abnormal
development of hearing, by exercising muscles which are usually left idle.

[FN#218] This reference to Allah shows that Abu Sir did not believe his dyer-friend.

[FN#219] Arab. "Dawá" (lit. remedy, medicine) the vulgar term: see vol. iv. 256: also called
Rasmah, Núrah and many other names.

[FN#221] Bresl. Edit. "The King of Isbániya." For the "Ishbán" (Spaniards) an ancient people
descended from Japhet son of Noah and who now are no more, see Al-Mas'udi (Fr. Transl. I.
361). The "Herodotus of the Arabs" recognises only the "Jalálikah" or Gallicians, thus bearing
witness to the antiquity and importance of the Gallego race.

[FN#222] Arab. "Sha'r," properly, hair of body, pile, especially the pecten. See Bruckhardt (Prov.
No. 202), "grieving for lack of a cow she made a whip of her bush," said of those who console
themselves by building Castles in Spain. The "parts below the waist" is the decent Turkish term
for the privities.

[FN#223] The drowning is a martyr's death, the burning is a foretaste of Hell-fire.

[FN#224] Meaning that if the trick had been discovered the Captain would have taken the barber's
place. We have seen (vol. i. 63) the Prime Minister superintending the royal kitchen and here the
Admiral fishes for the King's table. It is even more naïve than the Court of Alcinous.

[FN#226] Arab. "Khinsir" or "Khinsar," the little finger or the middle finger. In Arabic each has
its own name or names which is also that of the corresponding toe, e.g. Ibhám (thumb); Sabbábah,
Musabbah or Da'áah (fore-finger); Wastá (medius); Binsir (annularis ring-finger) and Khinsar
(minimus). There are also names for the several spaces between the fingers. See the English
Arabic Dictionary (London, Kegan Paul an Co., 1881) by the Revd. Dr. Badger, a work of
immense labour and research but which I fear has been so the learned author a labour of love not
of profit.

[FN#227] Meaning of course that the King signed towards the sack in which he supposed the
victim to be, but the ring fell off before it could take effect. The Eastern story-teller often balances
his multiplicity of words and needless details by a conciseness and an elliptical style which make
his meaning a matter of divination.

[FN#232] The tale begins upon the model of "Júdar and his Brethren," vi. 213. Its hero's full
name is Abdu'lláhi=Slave of Allah, which vulgar Egyptians pronounce Abdallah and purer
speakers, Badawin and others, Abdullah: either form is therefore admissible. It is more common
among Moslems but not unknown to Christians especially Syrians who borrow it from the Syriac
Alloh. Mohammed is said to have said, "The names most approved by Allah are Abdu'llah, Abd
al-Rahmán (Slave of the Compassionate) and such like" (Pilgrimage i. 20).

[FN#233] Arab. "Sírah" here probably used of the Nile-sprat (Clupea Sprattus Linn.) or Sardine
of which Forsk says, "Sardinn in Al-Yaman is applied to a Red Sea fish of the same name."
Hasselquist the Swede notes that Egyptians stuff the Sardine with marjoram and eat it fried even
when half putrid.

[FN#234] i.e. by declaring in the Koran (lxvii. 14; lxxiv. 39; lxxviii. 69; lxxxviii. 17), that each
creature hath its appointed term and lot; especially "Thinketh man that he shall be left uncared
for?" (xl. 36).

[FN#236] Arab. "Allah Karim" (which Turks pronounce Kyerím) a consecrated formula used
especially when a man would show himself resigned to "small mercies." The fisherman's wife was
evidently pious as she was poor; and the description of the pauper household is simple and
effective.

[FN#237] This is repeated in the Mac. Edit. pp. 496-97; an instance amongst many of most
careless editing.

[FN#238] Arab. "Alà mahlak" (vulg.), a popular phrase, often corresponding with our "Take it
coolly."

[FN#239] For "He did not keep him waiting, as he did the rest of the folk." Lane prefers "nor
neglected him as men generally would have done." But we are told supra that the baker "paid no
heed to the folk by reason of the dense crowd."

[FN#240] Arab. "Ruh!" the most abrupt form, whose sound is coarse and offensive as the
Turkish yell, "Gyel!"=come here.

[FN#242] Arab. "Ádami"=an Adamite, one descended from the mythical and typical Adam for
whom see Philo Judæus. We are told in one place a few lines further on that the merman is of
humankind; and in another that he is a kind of fish (Night dccccxlv). This belief in mermen,
possible originating with the caricatures of the human face in the intelligent seal and stupid
manatee, is universal. Al-Kazwini declares that a waterman with a tail was dried and exhibited,
and that in Syria one of them was married to a woman and had by her a son "who understood the
languages of both his parents." The fable was refined to perfect beauty by the Greeks: the mer-folk of the Arabs, Hindus and Northerners (Scandinavians, etc) are mere grotesques with green
hair, etc. Art in its highest expression never left the shores of the Mediterranean, and there is no
sign that it ever will.

[FN#243] Here Lane translates "Wajh" lit. "the desire of seeing the face of God," and explains in
a note that a "Muslim holds this to be the greatest happiness that can be enjoyed in Paradise." But
I have noted that the tenet of seeing the countenance of the Creator, except by the eyes of spirit,
is a much disputed point amongst Moslems.

[FN#244] Artful enough is this contrast between the squalid condition of the starving fisherman
and the gorgeous belongings of the Merman.

[FN#245] Lit. "Verily he laughed at me so that I set him free." This is a fair specimen of obscure
conciseness.

[FN#246] Arab. "Mishannah," which Lane and Payne translate basket: I have always heard it
used of an old gunny-bag or bag of plaited palm-leaves.

[FN#247] Arab. "Kaff Shurayk" applied to a single bun. The Shurayk is a bun, an oblong cake
about the size of a man's hand (hence the term "Kaff"=palm) with two long cuts and sundry
oblique crosscuts, made of leavened dough, glazed with egg and Samn (clarified butter) and
flavoured with spices (cinnamon, curcuma, artemisia and prunes mahalab) and with aromatic
seeds, (Rihat al-'ajin) of which Lane (iii. 641) specifies aniseed, nigella, absinthium, (Artemisia
arborescens) and Káfúrah (A. camphorata Monspeliensis) etc. The Shurayk is given to the poor
when visiting the tombs and on certain fêtes.

[FN#252] The European reader, especially feminine, will think this a hard fate for the pious first
wife but the idea would not occur to the Moslem mind. After bearing ten children a woman
becomes "Umm al-banáti w'al-banín"=a mother of daughters and sons, and should hold herself
unfit for love-disport. The seven ages of womankind are thus described by the Arabs and I
translate the lines after a well-known (Irish) model:--

From ten years to twenty-- Of beauty there's plenty. From twenty to thirty-- Fat, fair and alert t'ye. From thirty to forty-- Lads and lasses she bore t'ye. From forty to fifty-- An old'un and shifty. From fifty to sixty-- A sorrow that sticks t'ye. From sixty to seventy-- A curse of God sent t'ye.

For these and other sentiments upon the subject of women and marriage see Pilgrimage ii. 285-87.

[FN#253] Abdullah, as has been said, means "servant or rather slave of Allah."

[FN#254] Again the "Come to my arms, my slight acquaintance," of the Anti-Jacobin.

[FN#255] Arab. "Nukl," e.g. the quatre mendicants as opposed to "Fákihah"=fresh fruit. The
Persians, a people who delight in gross practical jokes, get the confectioner to coat with sugar the
droppings of sheep and goats and hand them to the bulk of the party. This pleasant confection is
called "Nukl-i-peshkil"--dung-dragées.

[FN#256] The older name of Madínat al-Nabi, the city of the Prophet; vulg. called Al-Medinah
per excellentiam. See vol. iv. 114. In the Mac. and Bul. texts we have "Tayyibah"=the goodly,
one of the many titles of that Holy City: see Pilgrimage ii. 119.

[FN#257] Not "visiting the tomb of," etc. but visiting the Prophet himself, who is said to have
declared that "Ziyárah" (visitation) of his tomb was in religion the equivalent of a personal call
upon himself.

[FN#258] Arab. "Nafakah"; for its conditions see Pigrimage iii. 224. I have again and again
insisted upon the Anglo-Indian Government enforcing the regulations of the Faith upon pauper
Hindi pilgrims who go to the Moslem Holy Land as beggars and die of hunger in the streets. To
an "Empire of Opinion" this is an unmitigated evil (Pilgrimage iii. 256); and now, after some
thirty-four years, there are signs that the suggestions of common sense are to be adopted.
England has heard of the extraordinary recklessness and inconsequence of the British-Indian
"fellow-subject."

[FN#260] When Moslems apply "Nabí!" to Mohammed it is in the peculiar sense of "prophet"
()=one who speaks before the people, not one who predicts, as such foresight was
adjured by the Apostle. Dr. A. Neubauer (The Athenæum No. 3031) finds the root of "Nabí!" in
the Assyrian Nabu and Heb. Noob (occurring in Exod. vii. 1. "Aaron thy brother shall be thy
prophet." i.e. orator, speaker before the people), and holds it to be a Canaanite term which
supplanted "Roeh" (the Seer) e.g. 1 Samuel ix. 9. The learned Hebraist traces the cult of Nebo, a
secondary deity in Assyria to Palestine and Phœnicia, Palmyra, Edessa (in the Nebok of Abgar)
and Hierapolis in Syria or Mabug (Nabog?).

[FN#261] I cannot find "Dandán" even in Lib. Quintus de Aquaticis Animalibus of the learned
Sam. Bochart's "Hierozoïcon" (London, 1663) and must conjecture that as "Dandán" in Persian
means a tooth (vol. ii. 83) the writer applied it to a sun-fish or some such well-fanged monster of
the deep.

[FN#262] A favourite proverb with the Fellah, when he alludes to the Pasha and to himself.

[FN#264] It is a temptation to derive this word from bœuf à l'eau, but I fear that the theory will
not hold water. The "buffaloes" of Alexandria laughted it to scorn.

[FN#265] Here the writer's zoological knowledge is at fault. Animals, which never or very rarely
see man, have no fear of him whatever. This is well-known to those who visit the Gull-fairs at
Ascension Island, Santos and many other isolated rocks; the hen birds will peck at the intruder's
ankles but they do not rise from off their eggs. For details concerning the "Gull-fair" of the
Summer Islands consult p. 4 "The History of the Bermudas," edited by Sir J. H. Lefroy for the
Hakluyt Society, 1882. I have seen birds on Fernando Po peak quietly await a second shot; and
herds of antelopes, the most timed of animals, in the plains of Somali-land only stared but were
not startled by the report of the gun. But Arabs are not the only moralists who write zoological
nonsense: witness the notable verse,

"Birds in their little nests agree,"

when the feathered tribes are the most pugnacious of breathing beings.

[FN#267] Meaning, "Thou hast as yet seen little or nothing." In most Eastern tongues a question
often expresses an emphatic assertion. See vol. i. 37.

[FN#268] Easterns wear as a rule little clothing but it suffices for the essential purposes of
decency and travellers will live amongst them for years without once seeing an accidental
"exposure of the person." In some cases, as with the Nubian thong-apron, this demand of modesty
requires not a little practice of the muscles; and we all know the difference in a Scotch kilt worn
by a Highlander and a cockney sportsman.

[FN#269] Arab. "Shíraj"=oil extracted from rape seed but especially from sesame. The Persians
pronounce it "Síraj" (apparently unaware that it is their own word "Shírah"=juice in Arabic garb)
and have coined a participle "Musayrij" e.g., Bú-i-musayrij, taint of sesame-oil applied especially
to the Jews who very wisely prefer, in Persia and elsewhere, oil which is wholesome to butter
which is not. The Moslems, however, declare that its immoderate use in cooking taints the
exudations of the skin.

[FN#274] Bresl. Edit. xi. 82; meaning, "You will probably keep it for yourself." Abdullah of the
Sea is perfectly logical; but grief is not. We weep over the deaths of friends mostly for our own
sake: theoretically we should rejoice that they are at rest; but practically we are afflicted by the
thought that we shall never again see their pleasant faces.

[FN#275] i.e. about rejoicing over the newborns and mourning over the dead.

[FN#276] i.e. Ishak of Mosul, for whom see vol. iv. 119. The Bresl. Edit. has Fazíl for Fazl.

[FN#284] Arab. "Al-Sath" whence the Span. Azotea. The lines that follow are from the Bresl.
Edit. v. 110.

[FN#285] This "'Ar'ar" is probably the Callitris quadrivalvis whose resin ("Sandarac") is imported
as varnish from African Mogador to England. Also called the Thuja, it is of cypress shape, slow
growing and finely veined in the lower part of the base. Most travellers are agreed that it is the
Citrus-tree of Roman Mauritania, concerning which Pliny (xiii. 29) gives curious details, a single
table costing from a million sesterces (£900) to 1,400,000. For other details see p. 95, "Morocco
and the Moors," by my late friend Dr. Leared (London: Sampson Low, 1876).

[FN#291] Arab. "Ta'wíz"=the Arab Tilasm, our Talisman, a charm, an amulet; and in India mostly
a magic square. The subject is complicated and occupies in Herklots some sixty pages, 222-284.

[FN#292] The Bul. and Mac. Edits. give the Princess's malady, in error, as Dáa al-Sudá'
(megrims), instead of Dáa al-Sar' (epilepsy) as in the Bresl. Edit. The latter would mean that she is
possessed by a demon, again the old Scriptural fancy (see vol. v. 28). The subject is highly fitted
for romance but not for a "serious" book which ought to know better.

[FN#299] Al-Khasíb (= the fruitful) was the son of 'Abd al-Hamíd and intendant of the tribute of
Egypt under Harun al-Rashid, but neither Lord nor Sultan. Lane (iii. 669) quotes three couplets in
his honour by Abu Nowás from p. 119 of "Elmacini (Al-Makín) Historia Saracenica."

If our camel visit not the land of Al-Khasib, what man after Al-Khasib shall they visit?For generosity is not his neighbour; nor hath it sojourned near him; but generosity goeth wherever he goeth:He is a man who purchaseth praise with his wealth, and who knoweth that the periods of Fortune revolve.

[FN#300] The old story "Alà júdi-k"= upon thy generosity, which means at least ten times the
price.

[FN#303] See vol. ii. 104. Herklots (Pl. vii. fig. 2) illustrates the cloth used in playing the Indian
game, Pachísí. The "board" is rather European than Oriental, but it has of late Years spread far
and wide, especially the backgammon board.

[FN#306] Called after the famous town in Persian Mesopotamia which however is spelt with the
lesser aspirate. See p. 144. The Geographical works of Sádik-i-Ispaháni, London Oriental Transl.
Fund, 1882. Hamdan (with the greater aspirate) and Hamdun mean only the member masculine,
which may be a delicate piece of chaff for the gallery

[FN#307] Arab. "Hulwán al-miftáh," for which see vol. vii. 212. Mr. Payne compares it with the
French denier à Dieu. given to the concierge on like occasions.

[FN#314] Arab. "Awák" plur. of Úkiyyah a word known throughout the Moslem East. As an
ounce it weighs differently in every country and in Barbary (Mauritania) which we call Morocco,
it is a nominal coin containing twelve Flús (fulús) now about = a penny. It is a direct descendant
from the "Uk" or "Wuk" (ounce) of the hieroglyphs (See Sharpe's Egypt or any other Manual)
and first appeared in Europe as the Greek .

[FN#316] Arab. "Lúlúah," which may mean the Union-pearl; but here used in the sense of wild
cow, the bubalus antelope, alluding to the farouche nature of Miss Jamilah. We are also told infrà
that the park was full of "Wuhúsh" = wild cattle

[FN#317] Arab. "Sákiyah," the venerable old Persian wheel, for whos music see Pilgrimage ii.
198. But Sakiyah" is also applied, as here, to the water-channel which turns the wheel.

[FN#318] Arab. "Kawádís," plur. of "Kádús," the pots round the rim of the Persian wheel: usually
they are of coarse pottery.

[FN#322] To spit or blow the nose in good society is "vulgar." Sneezing (Al-'Atsah) is a
complicated affair. For Talmudic traditions of death by sneezing see Lane (M. E. chaps. viii).
Amongst Hindus sneezing and yawning are caused by evil spirits whom they drive away by
snapping thumb and forefinger as loudly as possible. The pagan Arabs held sneezing a bad omen,
which often stopped their journeys. Moslems believe that when Allah placed the Soul (life ?) in
Adam, the dry clay became flesh and bone and the First Man, waking to life, sneezed and
ejaculated "Alhamdolillah;" whereto Gabriel replied, "Allah have mercy upon thee, O Adam!"
Mohammed, who liked sneezing because accompanied by lightness of body and openness of
pores, said of it, "If a man sneeze or eructate and say 'Alhamdolillah' he averts seventy diseases of
which the least is leprosy" (Juzám); also "If one of you sneeze, let him exclaim, 'Alhamdolillah,'
and let those around salute him in return with, 'Allah have mercy upon thee!' and lastly let him say,
'Allah direct you and strengthen your condition."' Moderns prefer, "Allah avert what may joy thy
foe !"= (our God bless you!) to which the answer is "Alhamdolillah!" Mohammed disliked
yawning (Suabá or Thuabá), because not beneficial as a sneeze and said, "If one of you gape and
over not his mouth, a devil leaps into it. " This is still a popular superstition from Baghdad to
Morocco.

[FN#326] Lane finds a needless difficulty in this sentence, which is far-fetched only because Kuus
(cups) requires Ruus (head-tops) byway of jingle. It means only "'Twas merry in hall when beards
wag all."

[FN#327] The Mac. Edit. gives two couplets which have already occurred from the Bull Edit i.
540.

[FN#328] The lines are half of four couplets in vol. iv. 192; so I quote Lane.

[FN#329].i.e. none hath pleased me. I have quoted the popular saying, "The son of the quarter
filleth not the eye." i.e. women prefer stranger faces.

[FN#330] Here after the favourite Oriental fashion, she tells the truth but so enigmatically that it
is more deceptive than an untruth; a good Eastern quibble infinitely more dangerous than an
honest downright lie. The consciousness that the falsehood is part fact applies a salve to
conscience and supplies a force lacking in the mere fib. When an Egyptian lies to you look straight
in his eyes and he will most often betray himself either by boggling or by a look of injured
innocence.

[FN#339] Who had a prior right to marry her, but not against her consent after she was of age.

[FN#340] Arab "Sirwál." In Al-Hariri it is a singular form (see No. ii. of the twelve riddles in Ass.
xxiv.), but Mohammed said to his followers "Tuakhkhizú" (adopt ye) "Saráwílát." The latter is
regularly declinable but the broken form Saráwíl is imperfectly declinable on account of its
"heaviness," as are all plurals whose third letter is an Alif followed by i or í in the next syllable.

[FN#341] Arab. "Matarik" from mitrak or mitrakah a small wooden shield coated with hide This
even in the present day is the policeman's equipment in the outer parts of the East.

[FN#342] Arab. "Sabíyah" for which I prefer Mr. Payne's "young lady" to Lane's "damsel" the
latter should be confined to Járiyah as both bear the double sense of girl and slave (or servant)
girl. "Bins" again is daughter, maid or simply girl.

[FN#344] Here the text is defective, but I hardly like to supply the omission. Mr. Payne
introduces from below, "for that his charms were wasted and his favour changed by reason of the
much terror and affliction he had suffered." The next lines also are very abrupt and unconnected.

[FN#345] Arab. "Yá Mauláya!" the term is still used throughout Moslem lands; but in Barbary
where it is pronounced "Mooláee" Europeans have converted it to "Muley" as if it had some
connection with the mule. Even in Robinson Crusoe we find "muly" or "Moly Ismael" (chaps. ii.);
and we hear the high-sounding name Maulá-i-Idrís, the patron saint of the Sunset Land, debased
to "Muley Drís."

[FN#346]Lane omits this tale because "it is very similar, but inferior in interest, to the Story told
by the Sultan's Steward." See vol. i. 278.

[FN#347] Sixteenth Abbaside A.H. 279-289 (=A.D. 891-902). "He was comely, intrepid, of
grave exterior, majestic in presence, of considerable intellectual power and the fiercest of the
Caliphs of the House of Abbas. He once had the courage to attack a lion" (Al-Siyuti). I may add
that he was a good soldier and an excellent administrator, who was called Saffáh the Second
because he refounded the House of Abbas. He was exceedingly fanatic and died of sensuality,
having first kicked his doctor to death, and he spent his last moments in versifying.

[FN#348] Hamdún bin Ismá'íl, called the Kátib or Scribe, was the first of his family who followed
the profession of a Nadím or Cup-companion. His son Ahmad (who is in the text) was an oral
transmitter of poetry and history. Al-Siyúti (p. 390) and De Slane I. Khall (ii. 304) notice him.

[FN#349] Probably the Caliph had attendants, but the text afterwards speaks of them as two.
Mac. Edit. iv. p. 558, line 2; and a few lines below, "the Caliph and the man with him."

[FN#350] Arab. "Naysábúr," the famous town in Khorasan where Omar-i-Khayyám (whom our
people will call Omar Khayyám) was buried and where his tomb is still a place of pious visitation.
A sketch of it has lately appeared in the illustrated papers. For an affecting tale concerning the
astronomer-poet's tomb, borrowed from the Nigáristán see the Preface by the late Mr. Fitzgerald
whose admirable excerpts from the Rubaiyat (101 out of 820 quatrains) have made the poem
popular among all the English-speaking races.

[FN#352] Tenth Abbaside (A.H. 234-247=848-861), grandson of Al-Rashid and born of a
slave-concubine. He was famous for his hatred of the Alides (he destroyed the tomb of
Al-Husayn) and claimed the pardon of Allah for having revised orthodox traditionary doctrines.
He compelled the Christians to wear collars of wood or leather and was assassinated by five
Turks.

[FN#353] His father was Al-Mu'tasim bi 'llah (A.H. 218-227=833-842) the son of Al-Rashid by
Máridah a slave-concubine of foreign origin. He was brave and of high spirit, but destitute of
education; and his personal strength was such that he could break a man's elbow between his
fingers. He imitated the apparatus of Persian kings; and he was called the "Octonary" because he
was the 8th Abbaside; the 8th in descent from Abbas; the 8th son of Al-Rashid; he began his reign
in A.H. 218; lived 48 years; was born under Scorpio (8th Zodiacal sign); was victorious in 8
expeditions; slew 8 important foes and left 8 male and 8 female children. For his introducing
Turks see vol. iii, 81.

[FN#359] In sign of honour. The threshold is important amongst Moslems: in one of the
Mameluke Soldans' sepulchres near Cairo I found a granite slab bearing the "cartouche" (shield)
of Khufu (Cheops) with the four hieroglyphs hardly effaced.

[FN#363] Thirteenth Abbaside A.H. 252-255 (=866-869). His mother was a Greek slave called
Kabíhah (Al-Mas'udi and Al-Siyuti); for which "Banjah" is probably a clerical error. He was
exceedingly beautiful and was the first to ride out with ornaments of gold. But he was impotent in
the hands of the Turks who caused the mob to depose him and kill him--his death being related in
various ways.

[FN#365] Arab. "Nusk" abstinence from women, a part of the Zahid's asceticism.

[FN#366] Arab. "Munázirah" the verbal noun of which, "Munázarah," may also mean "dispute."
The student will distinguish between "Munazarah" and Munafarah=a contention for precedence in
presence of an umpire.

[FN#373] Twelfth Abbaside (A.H. 248-252=862-866) the son of a slave-concubine Mukhárik. He
was virtuous and accomplished, comely, fair-skinned, pock-marked and famed for defective
pronunciation; and he first set the fashion of shortening men's capes and widening the sleeves.
After may troubles with the Turks, who were now the Prætorian guard of Baghdad, he was
murdered at the instigation of Al-Mu' tazz, who succeeded him, by his Chamberlain Sa'id bin
Salíh.

[FN#375]Lane rejects this tale because it is "extremely objectionable; far more so than the title
might lead me to expect." But he quotes the following marginal note by his Shaykh: --"Many
persons (women) reckon marrying a second time amongst the most disgraceful of actions. This
opinion is commonest in the country-towns and villages; and my mother's relations are thus
distinguished; so that a woman of them, when her husband dieth or divorceth her while she is
young, passeth in widowhood her life, however long it may be, and disdaineth to marry a second
time." I fear that this state of things belongs to the good old days now utterly gone by; and the
loose rule of the stranger, especially the English, in Egypt will renew the scenes which
characterised Sind when Sir Charles Napier hanged every husband who cut down an adulterous
wife. I have elsewhere noticed the ignorant idea that Moslems deny to women souls and seats in
Paradise, whilst Mohammed canonised two women in his own family. The theory arose with the
"Fathers" of the Christian Church who simply exaggerated the misogyny of St. Paul. St. Ambrose
commenting on Corinthians i. ii., boldly says:--"Feminas ad imaginem Dei factas non esse." St.
Thomas Aquinas and his school adopted the Aristotelian view, "Mulier est erratum naturae, et
mas occasionatus, et per accidens generatur; atque ideo est monstrum." For other instances see
Bayle s. v. Gediacus (Revd. Simon of Brandebourg) who in 1695 published a "Defensio Sexus
muliebris," a refutation of an anti-Socinian satire or squib, "Disputatio perjucunda, Mulieres
homines non esse," Parisiis, 1693. But when Islam arose in the seventh century, the Christian
learned cleverly affixed the stigma of their own misogyny upon the Moslems ad captandas
foeminas and in Southern Europe the calumny still bears fruit. Mohammed (Koran, chapt. xxiv.)
commands for the first time, in the sixth year of his mission, the veiling and, by inference, the
seclusion of women, which was apparently unknown to the Badawin and, if practised in the cities
was probably of the laxest. Nor can one but confess that such modified separation of the sexes,
which it would be impossible to introduce into European manners, has great and notable
advantages. It promotes the freest intercourse between man and man, and thus civilises what we
call the "lower orders": in no Moslem land, from Morocco to China, do we find the brutals
without manners or morals which are bred by European and especially by English civilisation. For
the same reason it enables women to enjoy fullest intimacy and friendship with one another, and
we know that the best of both sexes are those who prefer the society of their own as opposed to
"quite the lady's man" and "quite the gentleman's woman." It also adds an important item to social
decorum by abolishing e.g. such indecencies as the "ball-room flirtation"--a word which must be
borrowed from us, not translated by foreigners. And especially it gives to religious meetings, a
tone which the presence of women modifies and not for the better. Perhaps, the best form is that
semiseclusion of the sex, which prevailed in the heroic ages of Greece, Rome, and India (before
the Moslem invasion), and which is perpetuated in Christian Armenia and in modern Hellas. It is a
something between the conventual strictness of Al-Islam and the liberty, or rather licence, of the
"Anglo-Saxon" and the "Anglo-American." And when England shall have cast off that peculiar
insularity which makes her differ from all civilised peoples, she will probably abolish three gross
abuses, time-honoured scandals, which bear very heavily on women and children. The first is the
Briton's right to will property away from his wife and offspring. The second is the action for
"breach of promise," salving the broken heart with pounds, shillings, and pence: it should be
treated simply as an exaggerated breach of contract. The third is the procedure popularly called
"Crim. Con.," and this is the most scandalous of all: the offence is against the rights of property,
like robbery or burglary, and it ought to be treated criminally with fine, imprisonment and in cases
with corporal punishment after the sensible procedure of Moslem law.

[FN#378] The crescent of the month Zu 'l-Ka'dah when the Ramazan-fast is broken. This allusion
is common. Comp. vol. i. 84.

[FN#379] This line contains one of the Yes, Yes and No, No trifles alluded to in vol. ii, 60.
Captain Lockett (M. A. 103) renders it "I saw a fawn upon a hillock whose beauty eclipsed the
full moon. I said, What is thy name? she answered Deer. What my Dear said I, but she replied, no,
no!" To preserve the sound I have sacrificed sense: Lulu is a pearl, Li? li? (= for me, for me?) and
La! La! = no! no! See vol. i, 217. I should have explained a line which has puzzled some readers,

[FN#384] Zaynab (Zenobia) and Zayd are generic names for women and men.

[FN#385] i.e. He wrote "Kasidahs" (= odes, elegies) after the fashion of the "Suspended Poems"
which mostly open with the lover gazing upon the traces of the camp where his beloved had
dwelt. The exaggerated conventionalism of such exordium shows that these early poems had been
preceded by a host of earlier pieces which had been adopted as canons of poetry.

[FN#386] The verses are very mal-a-propos, like many occurring in The Nights, for the maligned
Shaykh is proof against all the seductions of the pretty boy and falls in love with a woman after
the fashion of Don Quixote. Mr. Payne complains of the obscurity of the original owing to abuse
of the figure enallage; but I find them explicit enough, referring to some debauched elder after the
type of Abu Nowas.

[FN#387] Arab. "'Irk" = a root which must here mean a sprig, a twig. The basil grows to a
comparatively large size in the East.

[FN#388] Arab. "Lait "= one connected with the tribe of Lot, see vol. v. 161.

[FN#389] For the play upon "Saki" (oblique case of sak, leg-calf) and Saki a cupbearer see vol. ii.
327.

[FN#390] "On a certain day the leg shall be bared and men shall be called upon to bow in
adoration, but they shall not be able" (Koran, lxviii. 42). "Baring the leg" implies a grievous
calamity, probably borrowed from the notion of tucking up the skirts and stripping for flight. On
the dangerous San Francisco River one of the rapids is called "Tira-calcoens" = take off your
trousers (Highlands of the Brazil, ii. 35). But here the allusion is simply ludicrous and to a
Moslem blasphemous.

[FN#391] Arab. "Istahi," a word of every day use in reproof. So the Hindost. "Kuchh sharm
nahin?" hast thou no shame? Shame is a passion with Orientals and very little known to the West.

[FN#392] i.e. Angels and men saying, "The Peace (of God) be on us and on all righteous servants
of Allah!" This ends every prayer.

[FN#393] Arab. "Al-Niyah," the ceremonial purpose or intent to pray, without which prayer is
null and void. See vol. v. 163. The words would be "I purpose to pray a two-bow prayer in this
hour of deadly danger to my soul." Concerning such prayer see vol. i. 142.

[FN#396] The mention of coffee now frequently occurs in this tale and in that which follows: the
familiar use of it showing a comparatively late date, and not suggesting the copyist's hand.

[FN#397] Arab. "Al-Kahwah," the place being called from its produce. See Pilgrimage i. 317-18.

[FN#398] Arab. "Al-Ghurbah Kurbah:" the translation in the text is taken from my late friend
Edward Eastwick, translator of the Gulistan and author of a host of works which show him to
have been a ripe Oriental scholar.

[FN#399] The fiction may have been suggested by the fact that in all Moslem cities from India to
Barbary the inner and outer gates are carefully shut during the noontide devotions, not "because
Friday is the day on which creation was finished and Mohammed entered Al-Medinah;" but
because there is a popular idea that in times now approaching the Christians will rise up against
the Moslems during prayers and will repeat the "Sicilian Vespers."

[FN#405] This was the custom of contemporary Europe and more than one master cutler has put
to death an apprentice playing Peeping Tom to detect the secret of sword-making.

[FN#406] Among Moslems husbands are divided into three species; (1) of "Bahr" who is married
for love; (2) of "Dahr," for defence against the world, and (3) of "Mahr" for marriage-settlements
(money). Master Obayd was an unhappy compound of the two latter; but he did not cease to be a
man of honour.

[FN#408] The Mac. Edit. everywhere calls her "Sabiyah" = the young lady and does not mention
her name Halimah = the Mild, the Gentle till the cmlxxivth Night. I follow Mr. Payne's example by
introducing it earlier into the story, as it avoids vagueness and repetition of the indefinite.

[FN#409] Arab "Adím al-Zauk,"=without savour. applied to an insipid mannerless man as
"bárid" (cold) is to a fool. "Ahl Zauk" is a man of pleasure, a voluptuary, a hedonist.

[FN#410] Arab. "Finján" the egg-shell cups from which the Easterns still drink coffee.

[FN#411] Arab. "Awáshik" a rare word, which Dozy translates "osselet" (or osselle) and Mr.
Payne, "hucklebones," concerning which he has obliged me with this note. Chambaud renders
osselet by "petit os avec lequel les enfants jouent." Hucklebone is the hip-bone but in the plural it
applies to our cockals or cockles: Latham gives "hucklebone," (or cockal), one of the small
vertebræ of the coccygis, and Littleton translates "Talus," a hucklebone, a bone to play with like a
dye, a play called cockal. (So also in Rider.) Hucklebones and knucklebones are syn.: but the
latter is modern and liable to give a false idea, besides being tautological. It has nothing to do with
the knuckles and derives from the German "Knochel" (dialectically Knochelein) a bonelet.

[FN#412] For ablution after sleep and before prayer. The address of the slave-girl is perfectly
natural: in a Moslem house we should hear it this day, nor does it show the least sign of
"frowardness. "

[FN#413] The perfect stupidity of the old wittol is told with the driest Arab humour.

[FN#414] This is a rechauffé of the Language of Signs in "Azíz and Azízah" vol. ii. 302.

[FN#417] Arab. "Ya Ahmak!" which in Marocco means a madman, a maniac, a Santon.

[FN#418] The whole passage has a grammatical double entendre whose application is palpable.
Harf al-Jarr=a particle governing the noun in the genitive or a mode of thrusting and tumbling.

[FN#419] Arab. "Al-Silah" =conjunctive (sentence), also coition; Al-Mausúl= the conjoined, a
grammatical term for relative pronoun or particle.

[FN#420] Arab. "Tanwin al-Izafah ma'zul" = the nunnation in construction cast out. "Tanwin"
(nunnation) is pronouncing the vowels of the case-endings of a noun with nun for u
(nominative)in for i (genitive) andan for a (accusative). This nunnation expresses indefiniteness,
e.g. "Malikun"=a king, any king. When the noun is made definite by the Ma'rifah or article (al),
the Tanwin must be dropped, e.g. Al-Maliku = the King; Al- Malikun being a grammatical
absurdity. In construction or regimen (izafah) the nunnation must also disappear, as Maliku
'I-Hind) = the King of Hind (a King of Hind would be Malikun min Muluki 'I-Hind) = a King from
amongst the Kings of Hind). Thus whilst the wife and the lover were conjoined as much as might
be, the hocussed and sleeping husband was dismissed (ma'zul=degraded) like a nunnation dropped
in construction. I may add that the terminal syllables are invariably dropped in popular parlance
and none but Mr. G. Palgrave (who afterwards ignored his own assertion) ever found an Arab
tribe actually using them in conversation although they are always pronounced when reading the
Koran and poetry.

[FN#421] This was a saying of Mohammed about overfrequency of visits, "Zur ghibban, tazid
hubban"=call rarely that friendship last fairly. So the verse of Al-Mutanabbi,

"How oft familiarity breeds dislike."

Preston quotes Jesus ben Sirach, ,
. Also Al-Hariri (Ass. xv. of "The Legal"; De Sacy p. 478 1. 2.) "Visit not your friend
more than one day in a month, nor stop longer than that with him!" Also Ass. xvi. 487, 8.
"Multiply not visits to thy friend." "None so disliked as one visiting too often." (Preston p. 352).
In the Cent nouvelles (52) Nouvelles (No. lii.) the dying father says to his son:--"Jamais ne vous
hantez tent en l'ostel de votre voisin que lion vous y serve de pain bis." In these matters Moslems
follow the preaching and practice of the Apostle, who was about as hearty and genial as the
"Great Washington." But the Arab had a fund of dry humour which the Anglo-American lacked
altogether.

[FN#422] Arab. "'Amal"--action, operation. In Hindostani it is used (often with an Alif for an
Ayn) as intoxication e.g. Amal pání strong waters and applied to Sharáb (wine), Bozah (Beer),
Tádí (toddy or the fermented juice of the Tád, Borassus flabelliformis), Naryáli (juice of the
cocoa-nut tree) Saynddi (of the wild date, Elate Sylvestris), Afyún (opium an its preparations as
post=poppy seeds) and various forms of Cannabis Sativa, as Ganja, Charas, Madad, Sahzi etc.
for which see Herklots' Glossary.

[FN#426] The lines have occurred in vol. i. 238, where I have noted the punning "Sabr"=
patience or aloes. I quote Torrens: the Templar, however, utterly abolishes the pun in the last
couplet:--

"The case is not at my command, but in fair Patience handI'm set by Him who order'th all and cloth such case command."

"Amr" here=case (circumstance) or command (order) with a suspicion of reference to
Murr=myrrh, bitterness. The reader will note the resignation to Fate's decrees which here and in
host of places elevates the tone of the book.

[FN#427] i.e. as one loathes that which is prohibited, and with a loathing which makes it
unlawful for me to cohabit with thee.

[FN#429] Hence, according to Moslem and Eastern theory generally her lewd and treasonable
conduct. But in Egypt not a few freeborn women and those too of the noblest, would beat her
hollow at her own little game. See for instance the booklet attributed to Jalál al-Siyútí and entitled
Kitáh al-Ízáh (Book of Explanation) fí 'Ilm al-Nikáh (in the Science of Carnal Copulation). There
is a copy of it in the British Museum; and a friend kindly suppl~ed me with a lithograph from
Cairo; warning me that there are doubts about the authorship.

[FN#430] These lines have occurred in vol. iii. 214: I quote Mr. Payne.

[FN#431] This ejaculation, as the waw shows, is parenthetic; spoken either by Halimah, by
Shahrazad or by the writer.

[FN#434] A proverbial saying which here means I could only dream of such good luck.

[FN#435] A good old custom amongst Moslems who have had business transactions with each
other: such acquittance of all possible claims will be quoted on "Judgment-Day," when debts will
be severely enquired into.

[FN#436] Arab. "Kutr (tract or quarter) Misr," vulgarly pronounced "Masr." I may remind the
reader that the Assyrians called the Nile-valley "Musur" whence probably the Heb. Misraim a dual
form denoting Upper and Lower Egypt which are still distinguished by the Arabs into Sa'id and
Misr. The hieroglyphic term is Ta-mera=Land of the Flood; and the Greek Aigyptos is probably
derived from Kahi-Ptah (region of the great God Ptah) or Ma Ka Ptah (House of the soul of
Ptah). The word "Cops" or "Kopt," in Egyptian "Kubti" and pronounced "Gubti," contains the
same consonants

[FN#437] Now an unimportant frontier fort and village dividing Syria-Palestine from Egypt and
famed for the French battle with the Mamelukes (Feb. 19, 1799) and the convention for
evacuating Egypt. In the old times it was an important site built upon the "River of Egypt" now a
dried up Wady; and it was the chief port of the then populous Najab or South Country. According
to Abulfeda it derived its name (the "boothy," the nest) from a hut built there by the brothers of
Joseph when stopped at the frontier by the guards of Pharaoh. But this is usual Jewish infection of
history.

[FN#438] Arab. "Báb." which may also="Chapter" or category. See vol. i., 136 and elsewhere
(index). In Egypt "Báb" sometimes means a sepulchral cave hewn in a rock (plur. Bíbán) from the
Coptic "Bíb."

[FN#439] i.e. "The Holy," a town some three marches (60 miles) N. East of Cairo; thus showing
the honour done to our unheroic hero. There is also a Sálihlyah quarter or suburb of Damascus
famous for its cemetery of holy men, but the facetious Cits change the name to Zálliniyah=causing
to stray; in allusion to its Kurdish population. Baron von Hammer reads "le faubourg Adelieh"
built by Al-Malik Al-Adil and founded a chronological argument on a clerical error.

[FN#440] Kamar al-Zaman; the normal pun on the name; a practice as popular in the East as in
the West, and worthy only of a pickpocket in either place.

[FN#441] Arab. "Azrár" plur. of "Zirr" and lit. = 'buttons," i.e. of his robe collar from which his
white neck and face appear shining as the sun.

[FN#442] Arab. "Dáirah" the usual inclosure of Kanáts or tent-flaps pitched for privacy during
the halt.

[FN#443] i.e. it was so richly ornamented that it resembled an enchanted hoard whose spells,
hiding it from sight, had been broken by some happy treasure seeker.

[FN#444] The merchant who is a "stern parent" and exceedingly ticklish on the Pundonor saw at
first sight her servile origin which had escaped the mother. Usually it is the other way.

[FN#445] Not the head of the Church, or Chief Pontiff, but the Chief of the Olema and Fukahá
(Fákihs or D.D.'s.) men learned in the Law (divinity). The order is peculiarly Moslem, in fact the
succedaneum for the Christian "hierarchy " an institution never contemplated by the Founder of
Christianity. This title shows the modern date of the tale.

[FN#446] Arab. "Maulid," prop. applied to the Birth-feast of Mohammed which begins on the
3rd day of Rabí al-Awwal (third Moslem month) and lasts a week or ten days (according to local
custom), usually ending on the 12th and celebrated with salutes of cannon, circumcision feasts.
marriage banquets. Zikr-litanies, perfections of the Koran and all manner of solemn festivities
including the "powder-play" (Láb al-Bárút) in the wilder corners of Al-Islam. It is also applied to
the birth-festivals of great Santons (as Ahmad al- Badawi) for which see Lane M. E. chaps. xxiv.
In the text it is used like the Span. "Funcion" or the Hind "Tamáshá," any great occasion of
merry-making.

[FN#447] Arab. "Sanájik" Plur. of Sanjak (Turk.) = a banner, also applied to the bearer (ensign
or cornet) and to a military rank mostly corresponding with Bey or Colonel.

[FN#448] I have followed Mr. Payne's ordering of the text which, both in the Mac. and Bull.
Edits., is wholly inconsequent and has not the excuse of rhyme.

[FN#449] Arab. "Jilbáb," a long coarse veil or gown which in Barbary becomes a "Jallábiyah," in
a striped and hooded cloak of woollen stuff.

[FN#452] Note the difference between "Zirt," the loud crepitus and "Faswah" the susurrus which
Captain Grose in his quaint "Lexicum Balatronicum," calls a "fice" or a "foyse" (from the Arabic
Fas, faswah ?).

[FN#453] These lines have occurred in Night dcxix, vol. vi. 246; where the pun on Khaliyah is
explained. I quote Lane.

[FN#454] The usual pretext of "God bizness," as the Comoro men call it. For the title of the
Ka'abah see my Pilgrimage vol. iii. 149.

[FN#455] This was in order to travel as a respectable man, he could also send the girl as a spy
into the different Harims to learn news of the lady who had eloped.

[FN#459] I would here remind the reader that "'Arabiyyun" pl. 'Urb is a man of pure Arab race,
whether of the Ahl al-Madar (=people of mortar, i.e. citizens) or Ahl al-Wabar (=tents of goat or
camel's hair); whereas "A'rábiyyun" pl. A'ráb is one who dwells in the Desert whether Arab or
not. Hence the verse:--

"They name us Al-A'ráb but Al-'Urb is our name."

[FN#460] I would remind the reader that the Dinár is the golden denarius (or solidus) of Eastern
Rome while the Dirham is the silver denarius, whence denier, danaro, dínheiro, etc., etc. The
oldest diners date from A.H. 91-92 (=714-15) and we find the following description of one struck
in A.H. 96 by Al-Walid the VI. Ommiade:--

Obverse: Area. "There is no iláh but Allah: He is one: He hath no partner." Circle. "Mohammed is the Messenger of Allah who hath sent him with the true Guidance and Religion that he manifest it above all other Creeds."

Reverse: Area. Allah is one: Allah is Eternal: He begetteth not, nor is He begot."&nbsp Circle. Bismillah: This Dinar was struck anno 96."

See "'Ilâm-en-Nas" (warnings for Folk) a pleasant little volume by Mr. Godfrey Clarke (London,
King and Co., 1873), mostly consisting of the minor tales from The Nights especially this group
between Nights ccxlvii. and cdlxi.; but rendered valuable by the annotations of my old friend, the
late Frederick Ayrton.

[FN#461] The reader will note the persistency with which the duty of universal benevolence is
preached.

[FN#464] This is the doctrine of the universal East; and it is true concerning wives and widows,
not girls when innocent or rather ignorant. According to Western ideas Kamar al-Zaman was a
young scoundrel of the darkest dye whose only excuses were his age, his inexperience and his
passions.

[FN#465] Arab. "Dayyús" prop. = a man who pimps for his own wife and in this sense constantly
occurring in conversation.

[FN#466] This is taking the law into one's own hands with a witness, yet amongst races who
preserve the Pundonor in full and pristine force, e.g. the Afghans and the Persian Iliyat, the killing
so far from being considered murder or even justifiable homicide would be highly commended by
public opinion.

[FN#467] Arab. "Nákisátu'aklin wa dín": the words are attributed to the Prophet whom we find
saying, "Verily in your wives and children ye have an enemy, wherefore beware of them" (Koran
lxiv. 14): compare 1 Cor. vii. 28, 32. But Maître Jehan de Meung went farther,

[FN#469] Iblis and his connection with Diabolos has been noticed in vol. i. 13. The word is
foreign as well as a P.N. and therefore is imperfectly declined, although some authorities deduce it
from "ablasa"=he despaired (of Allah's mercy). Others call him Al-Háris (the Lion) hence Eve's
first-born was named in his honour Abd al-Harts. His angelic name was Azázíl before he sinned by
refusing to prostrate himself to Adam, as Allah had commanded the heavenly host for a trial of
faith, not to worship the first man, but to make him a Keblah or direction of prayer addressed to
the Almighty. Hence he was ejected from Heaven and became the arch enemy of mankind (Koran
xviii. 48). He was an angel but related to the Jinn: Al-Bayzáwi, however (on Koran ii. 82), opines
that angelic by nature he became a Jinn by act. Ibn Abbas held that he belonged to an order of
angels who are called Jinn and begot issue as do the nasnás, the Ghúl and the Kutrub which,
however are male and female, like the pre-Adamite manwoman of Genesis, the "bi-une" of our
modern days. For this subject see Terminal Essay.

[FN#470] As usual in the East and in the West the husband was the last to hear of his wife's ill
conduct. But even Othello did not kill Emilia.

[FN#471] i.e. Star of the Morning: the first word occurs in Bar Cokba Barchocheba=Son of the
Star, i.e., which was to come out of Jacob (Numbers xxiv. 17). The root, which does not occur in
Heb., is Kaukab to thine. This Rabbi Akilah was also called Bar Cozla= Son of the Lie.

[FN#472] Here some excision has been judged advisable as the names of the bridegrooms and the
brides recur with damnable iteration.

[FN#473] See the note by Lane's Shaykh at the beginning of the tale. The contrast between the
vicious wife of servile origin and the virtuous wife of noble birth is fondly dwelt upon but not
exaggerated.

[FN#474] i.e. those of his water skins for the journey, which as usual required patching and
supplying with fresh handles after long lying dry.

[FN#475] A popular saying also applied to men. It is usually accompanied with showing the open
hand and a reference to the size of the fingers. I find this story most interesting from an
anthropological point of view; suggesting how differently various races regard the subject of
adultery. In Northern Europe the burden is thrown most unjustly upon the man, the woman who
tempts him being a secondary consideration; and in England he is absurdly termed "a seducer." In
former times he was "paraded" or "called out," now he is called up for damages, a truly ignoble
and shopkeeper-like mode of treating a high offence against private property and public morality.
In Anglo-America, where English feeling is exaggerated, the lover is revolver'd and the woman is
left unpunished. On the other hand, amongst Eastern and especially Moslem peoples, the woman
is cut down and scant reckoning is taken from the man. This more sensible procedure has struck
firm root amongst the nations of Southern Europe where the husband kills the lover only when he
still loves his wife and lover like is furious at her affection being alienated.

Practically throughout the civilised world there are only two ways of treating women, Moslems
keep them close, defend them from all kinds of temptations and if they go wrong kill them.
Christians place them upon a pedestal, the observed of all observers, expose them to every danger
and if they fall, accuse and abuse them instead of themselves. And England is so grandly logical
that her law, under certain circumstances, holds that Mrs. A. has committed adultery with Mr. B.
but Mr. B. has not committed adultery with Mrs. A. Can any absurdity be more absurd? Only
"summum jus, summa injuria." See my Terminal Essay. I shall have more to say upon this curious
subject, the treatment of women who can be thoroughly guarded only by two things, firstly their
hearts and secondly by the "Spanish Padlock."

[FN#476]Lane owns that this is "one of the most entertaining tales in the work," but he omits it
"because its chief and best portion is essentially the same as the story of the First of the Three
Ladies of Baghdad." The truth is he was straitened for space by his publisher and thus compelled
to cut out some of the best stories in The Nights.

[FN#477] i.e. Ibrahim of Mosul, the musician poet often mentioned in The Nights. I must again
warn the reader that the name is pronounced Is-hák (like Isaac with a central aspirate) not Ishák.
This is not unnecessary when we hear Tait-shill for Tait's hill and Frederick-shall for Friedrich,
shall.

[FN#480] Arab. Futúr, the chhotí házirí of Anglo-India or breakfast proper, eaten by Moslems
immediately after the dawn-prayer except in Ramázán. Amongst sensible people it is a substantial
meal of bread and boiled beans, eggs, cheese, curded milk and the pastry called fatírah, followed
by coffee and a pipe. See Lane M. E. chapt. v. and my Pilgrimage ii. 48.

[FN#481] This off-with-his-head style must not be understood literally. As I have noted, it is
intended by the writer to show the Kingship and the majesty of the Vicar of Allah.

[FN#484] Arab. Allah yastura-k=protect thee by hiding what had better be hidden.

[FN#485] Arab. Janázír=chains, an Arabised plural of the Pers. Zanjír with the metathesis or
transposition of letters peculiar to the vulgar; Janázír for Zanájír.

[FN#486] Arab. Safínah=(Noah's) Ark, a myth derived from the Baris of Egypt with subsequent
embellishments from the Babylonian deluge-legends: the latter may have been survivals of the
days when the waters of the Persian Gulf extended to the mountains of Eastern Syria. Hence I
would explain the existence of extinct volcanoes within sight of Damascus (see Unexplored Syria
i. p. 159) visited, I believe, for the first time by my late friend Charles F. Tyrwhitt-Drake and
myself in May, 1871.

[FN#487] Mansur and Násir are passive and active participles from the same root, Nasr=victory;
the former means triumphant and the latter triumphing.

[FN#488] The normal term of Moslem mourning, which Mohammed greatly reduced disliking the
abuse of it by the Jews who even in the present day are the strictest in its observance.

[FN#489] An euphuistic and euphemistic style of saying, "No, we don't know."

[FN#491] A Moslem is bound, not only by honour but by religion, to discharge the debts of his
dead father and mother and so save them from punishment on Judgment-day. Mohammed who
enjoined mercy to debtors while in the flesh (chapt. ii. 280, etc.) said "Allah covereth all faults
except debt; that is to say, there will be punishment therefor." Also "A martyr shall be pardoned
every fault but debt." On one occasion he refused to pray for a Moslem who died insolvent. Such
harshness is a curious contrast with the leniency which advised the creditor to remit debts by way
of alms. And practically this mild view of indebtedness renders it highly unadvisable to oblige a
Moslem friend with a loan.

[FN#492] i.e. he did not press them for payment; and, it must be remembered, he received no
interest upon his monies, this being forbidden in the Koran.

[FN#493] Al-Mas'údi (chap. xvii.) alludes to furs of Sable (Samúr), hermelline (Al-Farwah) and
Bortás (Turkish) furs of black and red foxes. For Samúr see vol. iv. 57. Sinjáb is Persian for the
skin of the grey squirrel (Mu. lemmus, the lemming), the meniver, erroneously miniver, (menu
vair) as opposed to the ermine=(Mus Armenius, or mustelaerminia.) I never visit England
without being surprised at the vile furs worn by the rich, and the folly of the poor in not adopting
the sheepskin with the wool inside and the leather well tanned which keeps the peasant warm and
comfortable between Croatia and Afghanistan.

[FN#494] Arab. "Tájir Alfí which may mean a thousand dinars (£500) or a thousand purses
(=£5,000). Alfí is not an uncommon P.N., meaning that the bearer (Pasha or pauper) had been
bought for a thousand left indefinite.

[FN#500] i.e. ye shall be spared this day's miseries. See my Pilgrimage vol. i. 314, and the delight
with which we glided into Marsá Damghah.

[FN#501] Arab. Súwán=Syenite (-granite) also used for flint and other hard stones. See vol. i.
238.

[FN#502] Koran xxiv. Male children are to the Arab as much prized an object of possession as
riches, since without them wealth is of no value to him. Mohammed, therefore, couples wealth
with children as the two things wherewith one wards off the ills of this world, though they are
powerless against those of the world to come.

[FN#503] An exclamation derived from the Surat Nasr (cx. 1) one of the most affecting in the
Koran. It gave Mohammed warning of his death and caused Al-Abbás to shed tears; the Prophet
sings a song of victory in the ixth year of the Hijrah (he died on the xth) and implores the pardon
of his Lord.

[FN#504] Arab. Dáirah, a basin surrounded by hills. The words which follow may mean, "An
hour's journey or more in breadth.

[FN#505] These petrified folk have occurred in the "Eldest Lady's Tale" (vol. i. 165), where they
are of "black stone."

[FN#506] Arab. "Táj Kisrawi, such as was worn by the Chosroes Kings. See vol. i. 75.

[FN#507] The familiar and far-famed Napoleonic pose, with the arms crossed over the breast, is
throughout the East the attitude assumed by slave and servant in presence of his master. Those
who send statues to Anglo-India should remember this.

[FN#508] Arab. Táálík=hanging lamps, often in lantern shape with coloured glass and profuse
ornamentation; the Maroccan are now familiar to England.

[FN#510] The wicket or small doorway, especially by the side of a gate or portal, is called "the
eye of the needle" and explains Matt. xix. 24, and Koran vii. 38. In the Rabbinic form of the
proverb the camel becomes an elephant. Some have preferred to change the Koranic Jamal
(camel) for Habl (cable) and much ingenuity has been wasted by Christian commentators on Mark
x. 25, and Luke xviii. 25.

[FN#511] i.e. A "Kanz" (enchanted treasury) usually hidden underground but opened by a
counter-spell and transferred to earth's face. The reader will note the gorgeousness of the picture.

[FN#512] Oriental writers, Indian and Persian, as well as Arab, lay great stress upon the extreme
delicacy of the skin of the fair ones celebrated in their works, constantly attributing to their
heroines bodies so sensitive as to brook with difficulty the contact of the finest shift. Several
instances of this will be found in the present collection and we may fairly assume that the skin of
an Eastern beauty, under the influence of constant seclusion and the unremitting use of cosmetics
and the bath, would in time attain a pitch of delicacy and sensitiveness such as would in some
measure justify the seemingly extravagant statements of their poetical admirers, of which the
following anecdote (quoted by Ibn Khellikan from the historian Et Teberi) is a fair specimen.
Ardeshir ibn Babek (Artaxerxes I.), the first Sassanian King of Persia (A.D. 226-242), having long
unsuccessfully besieged El Hedr, a strong city of Mesopotamia belonging to the petty King Es
Satiroun, at last obtained possession of it by the treachery of the owner's daughter Nezireh and
married the latter, this having been the price stipulated by her for the betrayal to him of the place.
"It happened afterwards that, one night, as she was unable to sleep and turned from side to side in
the bed, Ardeshir asked her what prevented her from sleeping. She replied, 'I never yet slept on a
rougher bed than this; I feel something irk me.' He ordered the bed to be changed, but she was
still unable to sleep. Next morning, she complained of her side, and on examination, a myrtle-leaf
was found adhering to a fold of the skin, from which it had drawn blood. Astonished at this
circumstance, Ardeshir asked her if it was this that had kept her awake and she replied in the
affirmative. 'How then,' asked he, 'did your father bring you up?' She answered, 'He spread me a
bed of satin and clad me in silk and fed me with marrow and cream and the honey of virgin bees
and gave me pure wine to drink.' Quoth Ardeshir, 'The same return which you made your father
for his kindness would be made much more readily to me'; and bade bind her by the hair to the tail
of a horse, which galloped off with her and killed her." It will be remembered that the true
princess, in the well-known German popular tale, is discovered by a similar incident to that of the
myrtle-leaf. I quote this excellent note from Mr. Payne (ix. 148), only regretting that annotation
did not enter into his plan of producing The Nights. Amongst Hindu story-tellers a phenomenal
softness of the skin is a lieucommun: see Vikram and the Vampire (p.285, "Of the marvellous
delicacy of their Queens"); and the Tale of the Sybarite might be referred to in the lines given
above.

[FN#513]"(55) Indeed joyous on that day are the people of Paradise in their employ; (56) In shades, on bridal couches reclining they and their wives: (57) Fruits have they therein and whatso they desire. (58) 'Peace' shall be a word from a compassionating Lord. Koran xxxvi. 55-58, the famous
Chapt. Yá Sín; which most educated Moslems learn by heart. See vol. iii. 19. In addition to the
proofs there offered that the Moslem Paradise is not wholly sensual I may quote, "No soul
wotteth what coolth of the eyes is reserved (for the good) in recompense of their works" (Koran
lxx. 17). The Paradise of eating, drinking, and copulating which Mr. Palgrave (Arabia, i. 368)
calls "an everlasting brothel between forty celestial concubines" was preached solely to the baser
sort of humanity which can understand and appreciate only the pleasures of the flesh. To talk of
spiritual joys before the Badawin would have been a non-sens, even as it would be to the roughs
of our great cities.

[FN#516] "The Jabábirah (giant-rulers of Syria) and the Akásirah (Chosroës-Kings of Persia).

[FN#517] This shows (and we are presently told) that the intruder was Al-Khizr, the Green
Prophet, for whom see vol. iv. 175.

[FN#518] i.e. of salvation supposed to radiate from all Prophets, esp. from Mohammed.

[FN#519] This formula which has occurred from the beginning (vol.i.1) is essentially Koranic: See
Chapt. li. 18-19 and passim.

[FN#520] This trick of the priest hidden within the image may date from the days of the vocal
Memnon, and was a favourite in India, especially at the shrine of Somnauth (Soma-náth), the
Moon-god, Atergatis Aphrodite, etc.

[FN#521] Arab. Almás=Gr. Adamas. In opposition to the learned ex-Professor Maskelyne I
hold that the cutting of the diamond is of very ancient date. Mr. W. M. Flinders Patrie (The
Pyramids and Temples of Gizah, London: Field and Tuer, 1884) whose studies have thoroughly
demolished the freaks and unfacts, the fads and fancies of the "Pyramidists," and who may be said
to have raised measurement to the rank of a fine art, believes that the Euritic statues of old Egypt
such as that of Khufu (Cheops) in the Bulak Museum were drilled by means of diamonds.
Athenus tells us (lib. v.) that the Indians brought pearls and diamonds to the procession of
Ptolemy Philadelphus; and this suggests cutting, as nothing can be less ornamental than the uncut
stone.

[FN#522] i.e. as if they were holding a Durbar; the King's idol in the Sadr or place of honour
and the others ranged about it in their several ranks.

[FN#523] These words are probably borrowed from the taunts of Elijah to the priests of Baal (1
Kings xviii. 27). Both Jews and Moslems wilfully ignored the proper use of the image or idol
which was to serve as a Keblah or direction of prayer and an object upon which to concentrate
thought and looked only to the abuse of the ignoble vulgus who believe in its intrinsic powers.
Christendom has perpetuated the dispute: Romanism affects statues and pictures: Greek
orthodoxy pictures and not statues and the so-called Protestantism ousts both.

[FN#531] Arab. Badlat Kunúzíyah=such a dress as would be found in enchanted hoards
(Kunúz): .g. Prince Esterhazy's diamond jacket.

[FN#532] The lieu d'aisance in Eastern crafts is usually a wooden cage or framework fastened
outside the gunwale very cleanly but in foul weather very uncomfortable and even dangerous.

[FN#533] Arab. "Ghull," a collar of iron or other metal, sometimes made to resemble the Chinese
Kza or Cangue, a kind of ambulant pillory, serving like the old stocks which still show in England
the veteris vestigia ruris. See Davis, "The Chinese," i. 241. According to Al-Siyúti (p. 362) the
Caliph Al-Mutawakkil ordered the Christians to wear these Ghulls round the neck, yellow head-gear and girdles, to use wooden stirrups and to place figures of devils before their houses. The
writer of The Nights presently changes Ghull to chains and fetters of iron.

[FN#535] Father of Harun al-Rashid A.H. 158-169 (=775-785) third Abbaside who both in the
Mac. and the Bul. Edits. is called the fifth of the sons of Al-Abbas. He was a good poet and a
man of letters, also a fierce persecutor of the "Zindiks" (Al-Siyuti 278), a term especially applied
to those who read the Zend books and adhered to Zoroastrianism, although afterwards applied to
any heretic or atheist. He made many changes at Meccah and was the first who had a train of
camels laden with snow for his refreshment along a measured road of 700 miles (Gibbon, chapt.
lii.). He died of an accident when hunting: others say he was poisoned after leaving his throne to
his sons Musa al-Hadi and Harun al-Rashid. The name means Heaven-directed and must not be
confounded with the title of the twelfth Shi'ah Imám Mohammed Abu al-Kásim born at
Sarramanrai A.H. 255 whom Sale (sect. iv.) calls Mahdi or Director and whose expected return
has caused and will cause so much trouble in Al-Islam.

[FN#536] This speciosum miraculum must not be held a proof that the tale was written many
years after the days of Al-Rashid. Miracles grow apace in the East and a few years suffice to
mature them. The invasion of Abraha the Abyssinia took place during the year of Mohammed's
birth; and yet in an early chapter of the Koran (No. cv.) written perhaps forty-five years
afterwards, the small-pox is turned into a puerile and extravagant miracle. I myself became the
subject of a miracle in Sind which is duly chronicled in the family-annals of a certain Pir or
religious teacher. See History of Sindh (p. 23O) and Sind Revisited (i. 156).

[FN#541] For the superiority of mankind to the Jinn see vol. viii. 5;44.

[FN#542] According to Al-Siyuti, Harun al-Rashid prayed every day a hundred bows.

[FN#543] As the sad end of his betrothed was still to be accounted for.

[FN#544] For the martyrdom of the drowned see vol. i, 171, to quote no other places.

[FN#545] i.e. if he have the power to revenge himself. The sentiment is Christian rather than
Moslem.

[FN#546] i.e. the power acquired (as we afterwards learn) by the regular praying of the dawn-prayer. It is not often that The Nights condescend to point a moral or inculcate a lesson as here;
and we are truly thankful for the immunity.

[FN#547] Arab. "Musáfahah which, I have said, serves for our shaking hands: and extends over
wide regions. They apply the palms of the right hands flat to each other without squeezing the
fingers and then raise the latter to the forehead. Pilgrimage ii. 332, has also been quoted.

[FN#550] Arab. Dárfíl=the Gr. later , suggesting that the writer had read of
Arion in Herodotus i. 23.

[FN#551] 'Aúj; I can only suggest, with due diffidence, that this is intended for Kúch the well-known Baloch city in Persian Carmania (Kirmán) and meant by Richardson's Koch ü buloch.
But as the writer borrows so much from Al-Mas'udi it may possibly be Aúk in Sístán where stood
the heretical city Shádrak, chapt. cxxii.

[FN#552] i.e. The excellent (or surpassing) Religious. Shaykhah, the fem. of Shaykh, is a she-chief, even the head of the dancing-girls will be entitled Shaykhah.

[FN#553] The curtain would screen her from the sight of men-invalids and probably hung across
the single room of the Záwiyah or hermit's cell. The curtain is noticed in the tales of two other
reverend women; vols. iv. 155 and v. 257.

[FN#554] Abdullah met his wife on Thursday, the night of which would amongst Moslems be
Friday night.